Population growth has resumed with renewed vigor in Quebec after being slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, while the increase in the first six months of 2022 has reached pre-health crisis levels, and even exceeded it slightly.
This is revealed by data from the Quebec Institute of Statistics (ISQ), which estimates the population of La Belle Province at 8.7 million people on 1er July 2022.
In its latest demographic report presented Thursday, the ISQ reports an addition of 58,600 inhabitants in 2021. And for the first half of 2022, the increase already shows 58,000 people.
Mainly due to immigration
According to the institute, the current population increase is mainly due to international migration gains. It indicates that 50,300 permanent immigrants settled in Quebec in 2021, approximately double the previous year. This number has been on the rise since the start of 2022.
In terms of interprovincial migration, Quebec is also showing an upturn with losses of 2,200 people last year, “among the lowest ever recorded,” notes the ISQ.
“The data for the first half of 2022 indicate that there would have been as many Quebec residents who left to settle in another province as the reverse, a situation rarely observed before,” adds the ISQ in a press release.
If in 2021 deaths have decreased and births have increased, the latest demographic assessment points to an opposite effect for the first months of the current year.
Moreover, the number of people aged 65 and over exceeds for the first time the number of young people under 20.
The first group accounts for 20.8% of the Quebec population, compared to 20.6% for the second category.