What brain drain? More young professionals moving to Vancouver than leaving, analyst says

It's a familiar story: High housing costs are pushing more and more young professionals out of Metro Vancouver.

Butthe anecdotes describing Vancouver's brain drain aren't backed up by the numbers, according to a data analyst.

"If we look at the census data, we see that, of course, people are leaving, but they're all getting replaced and then some," said Jens von Bergmann, founder of the Vancouver-based census mapper MountainMath.

VonBergmannstarted looking into the data after hearing numerous stories about young people leaving because of the cost of living.

"When the first story came out, I tried to verify the numbers," he said and thenumbers simply didn't match the narrativesbeing touted, von Bergmann found.

Metro Vancouver's population is on the rise, he said, and moreyoung university graduates are coming in than leaving.

And whilethe job vacancy rate in the region is just over fiveper cent which vonBergmanndescribes as "astronomical" compared to other cities like Toronto, which hovers around threeper cent that doesn't tell the full story.

"If we look at what kind of jobs [are vacant], it's mostly the lower skilled jobs in retail that have a big problem retaining people," he said.

"It's not the professionals or the highly educated people we should worry about most."

Vancouver's housing lens

VonBergmannsays the flow of people in and out of Vancouver is similar to other big cities in Canada. It's just the reasons that are framed differently.

"It looks pretty normal: People move for opportunities, for jobs, for other reasons," he told Stephen Quinn, host ofCBC'sThe Early Edition.

"In Vancouver, we don't interpret them as stories of opportunity. We interpret them as stories of loss."

He agreesthat housing is a stress for manyVancouverites, and more affordable housing, or higher salaries, may be among the opportunities that drawsomeone to move away.

But it's not the only reason, despite often being framed as so.

"In Vancouver, whatever story we have, we interpret it in terms of housing," vonBergmannsaid.