DataNB's ICT Workforce Study: N.B. Keeps Its Tech Grads for a Year, Then Loses Many

New Brunswick's tech workforce is growing and holds new arrivals for a while, but keeping them for the long run is harder. That is the conclusion of a research program from DataNB, the University of New Brunswick's administrative-data research centre, which UNB published on Oct. 14.

The program has a summary report and four studies, all dated July 2026 and funded by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. DataNB director Ted McDonald is the principal investigator on all four, and UNB economist Herb Emery, the Vaughan Chair in Regional Economics, co-leads the demand study. The supply and retention reports use linked administrative data, including tax records and Medicare registrations. The demand report uses job-posting data.

Graduates: the one-year number looks good

The retention report finds that N.B. universities have produced about 180 to 200 ICT graduates a year since 2015. Colleges jumped to about 200 a year in 2018 and have stayed there.

For university graduates, coming from outside the province was the strongest predictor of leaving. Among college graduates, those from another province had nearly 35 times the odds of leaving that N.B.-born grads had. International students now make up nearly half of college ICT graduates, up from under 10%, the report says. They were more likely to stay than N.B.-born college grads, though the authors caution the counts are small and recent.

Immigrants: the nominee program holds best

The Provincial Nominee Program brings in nearly two-thirds of ICT-skilled permanent residents landing in New Brunswick. That group has grown steadily since 2021, with notably more French-speaking and bilingual arrivals. About 68.7% are still in the province a year after landing. Compared with nominees, those who landed through the temporary resident to permanent resident pathway, a one-time federal program that closed in 2021, had a 124% higher risk of leaving. Those from the Canadian Experience Class had a 33% higher risk.

The temporary foreign worker report finds ICT-skilled workers were only about 2.3% of temporary foreign workers arriving each year from 2005 to 2023. When they became permanent residents, 78% stayed at least a year. That falls to 47.4% after five years, about the same as all ICT-skilled permanent residents (47.5%). Since the Atlantic Immigration Program launched in 2017, it has handled 34.5% of their transitions to permanent residency, while the nominee program's share fell from 84% to 41.4%.

The pay gap opens later

The labour supply report helps explain who leaves. A year after graduating or landing, ICT workers earn about the same in New Brunswick as elsewhere in Canada. Five years on, a gap appears (all figures in 2021 dollars):

• university ICT graduates: $81,873 working in N.B. versus $92,303 outside
• ICT-skilled permanent residents: $83,410 in N.B. versus $105,837 outside

Regression models put the five-year premium for working outside the province at about 12% to 13%. The authors note that New Brunswick's cost of living is estimated at 8% below the national average, so part of that gap may reflect higher costs elsewhere. Among university ICT grads working outside the province a year out, the top destinations were Ontario (40%), Nova Scotia (18.3%) and Quebec (16.7%).

The same report finds the workforce changing. Immigrants went from 10.2% of N.B.'s ICT workers in 2016 to 23.7% in 2021. Employment among ICT workers stayed between 91% and 96% from 2010 to 2022.

Fewer postings, higher bars

The demand report looks at job postings in natural and applied sciences, the occupation group that includes most ICT jobs. From 2019 to 2023, total job postings in the province rose 22%, while science and tech postings fell 10%. Their share of all postings fell from 5.6% to 4.1%.

• By city: Fredericton's postings fell 34%. Saint John's rose 15%. The three big cities' combined share fell from about 80% to 70%.
• Education: about 60% of postings listed an education requirement, up from 49%. The share asking for an undergraduate degree rose from 22% to 28%.
• Pay: advertised wages for college-level roles rose from $26.26 to $33.23 an hour, a 9.5% real increase. Professional applied-science jobs paid the most, at $48.77 an hour in 2023.

The authors warn that posting data misses internal hires and can double-count. They call the trends "indicative," not exact counts.

What the reports don't answer

The studies measure where people end up, not why they move. The demand data ends in 2023, before the current AI hiring cycle. The authors call for more research on what keeps skilled workers in the province. They don't recommend specific policies.

Sources

• UNB Newsroom / DataNB — Exploring New Brunswick's ICT workforce: Demand, supply and retention (Oct. 14, 2026): the research program and its overall findings
• DataNB — Retention of ICT graduates and immigrants in New Brunswick (McDonald, Miah, Morehouse, 2026): graduate counts, 1/5/10-year retention, PNP share, landing-stream risks
• DataNB — Labour supply, employment and earnings in New Brunswick's ICT sector (2026): employment rate, immigrant share, destinations, five-year income gaps, cost-of-living caveat
• DataNB — Transition to permanent residency and retention of ICT-skilled temporary foreign workers (2026): temporary-worker share, transition rates, AIP vs PNP, retention
• DataNB — Profiling the demand for jobs in the ICT sector in New Brunswick (Emery, McDonald, 2026): postings 2019–2023, city shifts, education requirements, wages