On the Move: Labour Mobility and Community Capacity: Executive Summary

Abstract

A key change in Canada’s resource towns has been the growth of mobile workforces. Labour mobility presents numerous opportunities and challenges for workers and communities in rural and small town settings. The On the Move Partnership is a Canadian research initiative investigating workers’ extended travel and absence from their places of permanent residence for work. In Canada, many workers are ‘on the move’. Multiple factors are fueling employment-related mobility in Canada: improvements in transportation and communications, an aging population, mismatches between work opportunities and local labour supplies, rural and remote resource development, an increase in precarious employment, economic volatility, housing costs, as well as policy changes and other developments.