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When Laura Hahn and her boyfriend returned home to Calgary after a year teaching English in Thailand, everything had changed.

Born and raised in the Calgary area, the 22-year-old had hoped to easily land a job on her return 10 months ago, but has struggled since she stepped off the plane.

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Wednesday was her last day as a receptionist working just one and a half days a week, giving her extra time to plan a move in September with her boyfriend Daniel Payne to Nanaimo, B.C., suddenly a land of opportunity compared with Calgary.

“I have been looking for work ever since we moved back,” she said.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be living in B.C. But the job market there is really good compared to here.”

While the couple still count as Calgary citizens in 2016, next year they’ll join a troubling trend of people departing the city at a rate not seen in decades.

The city on Wednesday released its 2016 census, which saw more than 6,500 people (about half a percentage point of the city’s population) pack their bags and leave, roughly bucking an almost annual trend of massive annual migration to the city dating back to the late 1980s.

While Calgary’s population actually grew by 4,256 in 2016, jumping to 1.235 million, the primary reason is attributed to a natural increase (more births than deaths) of 10,783.