People Power: Alberta’s Ongoing Population Growth

This blog post was provided by Rob Roach, Deputy Chief Economist at ATB Financial

Having lived in Alberta for over five decades, I’ve been a firsthand witness to its rapid population growth. At five million residents and counting, Alberta is over three times larger than it was in 1970.

As Alberta (and everywhere else) deals with the economic fallout from U.S. trade policy under President Trump, the activity spurred by its ongoing population growth will help it weather the storm. It’s an impressive demographic story in which Alberta leads the country.

At the same time, the province’s recent growth spurt presents challenges as job creation, housing and infrastructure try to catch up. Longer-term demographic forces include a growing proportion of seniors and ongoing urbanization.

To help get our heads around this, ATB Economics has pulled together a new report entitled Adding up: Alberta’s population growth and its economic implications.

Recent trends include:

• Faster than the rest – Alberta’s annual population growth has outpaced every other province and territory for two years in a row. Alberta also grew faster than all 50 U.S. states last year with the U.S. leader (Florida) well back at 2.0% annual growth. Between July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2024, Alberta added just shy of 378,000 new residents or more than twice the population of Prince Edward Island in just two years.
• An international affair – The annual number of immigrants arriving in Alberta reached a record high in 2024 at over 60,000. An even bigger story, however, has been the meteoric rise in the number of non-permanent residents (NPRs) added to Alberta’s population. The province’s NPR population grew by over 91,000 in 2024 compared to less than 12,000 in 2022.
• Welcome neighbour – Alberta recorded a near-record net gain of 43,750 residents from other parts of Canada last year, most from Ontario and British Columbia.
• Baby steps – Natural increase (births less death) added over 15,000 people to Alberta’s population last year while the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and B.C. all experienced natural decrease last year.

Looking ahead:

• Growth will continue, but at a slower pace – Barring something unforeseen, Alberta’s population is on track to continue growing for decades to come and to do so faster than the national average. At the same time, the rapid influx of new residents seen over the last two years will be replaced by a more moderate rate of growth. Immigration is projected to remain the largest source of new Albertans followed by natural increase and gains from interprovincial migration.
• The population will get older – Alberta’s seniors population is projected to increase from 15% of the population today to 20% by 2049. This will still be the smallest proportion among the provinces with the share of seniors in Alberta’s population not reaching the current national average until 2035. Nonetheless, the growing number of seniors represents—as it does across the country—a major demographic shift that requires proactive planning on the part of governments, service providers, and businesses.
• Even more urban – Alberta’s urban centres and the surrounding areas are projected to see the strongest population growth and account for the vast majority of overall population gains.

Adding it all up:

David Foot’s observation in his book Boom, Bust and Echo that demographics explain about two-thirds of everything gets quoted often and for good reason. From housing demand and the composition of the labour market to volunteering rates and the size of the tax base, demographic trends have profound effects.

Alberta’s recent population boom provided an economic boost that has helped it weather the recent inflation and interest rate storm, and the province’s ongoing growth will help it push through the current tariff headwinds.