Moose Jaw, and the province of Saskatchewan in general, are seeing a drop in the retention of immigrants to the area. 

According to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan’s five-year retention rate has dropped 14.3 percentage points from 2012 admission cohorts to 2016 cohorts. 

Jaella Wiebe, settlement services manager with the Moose Jaw Multicultural Council, said our city isn’t immune to the issue. She said the challenges to keep newcomers in the area long-term are complex from employment to them wanting to move to larger centres. 

“On the personal side, it could come down to cultural and ethnic groups in the area. Maybe there’s a larger community from where they are in larger centres,” said Wiebe. “I think anywhere in the world you often see movement towards larger centres. I think that’s indicative of newcomers.” 

Statistics Canada’s report says Saskatchewan’s five-year retention rate dropped from 75.1 per cent with the 2012 admission cohorts to 57.9 per cent with the 2016 admission cohorts. 

One-year retention rates dropped from 75.7 per cent in 2016 to 64.6 per cent in 2020. 

Wiebe said the Moose Jaw Multicultural Council has numerous programs in place to help newcomers get settled and find employment with the hopes of keeping them in the city long-term. 

“We assist permanent residents here and the Newcomer Welcome Centre does the same, and they assist temporary residents as well as people who have written the examine to become naturalized citizens. They also assist people from the area outside of Moose Jaw,” she explained. 

One of the challenges Wiebe noted was employment. She said the Moose Jaw Multicultural Council has one full-time employment coordinator and one temporary employment coordinator. They work to help employees and employers with cultural differences and came from places with different work standards. 

“The demand for the need on our employment coordinators is just a little bit more than we have the capacity to fill, but we are still willing to fill in as much as we possibly can and help as many people as we can too,” Wiebe said. 

There is also the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot program. According to their website, the program is “designed to spread the benefits of economic immigration to smaller communities by creating a path to permanent residence for skilled foreign workers who want to work and live in Moose Jaw.” 

“That does work to try and bring newcomers and keep them long-term. I think they have a decent success rate in people staying a bit longer term. So, that’s another employment support that’s in the city that we’re associated with,” said Wiebe. 

According to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan’s one-year retention rate of skilled workers and skilled trades dropped from 42.6 per cent in 2016 to 39.3 per cent in 2022. 

You can read Statistics Canada’s full report here.