NOVA SCOTIANS will soon be struggling to compete for increasingly scarce health, education and social services if the province's population continues to decline at the current rate.

Hit with declining birth rates, an aging population and out-migration of young people, the province's population growth has crashed.

From 1996 to 2003, total population growth was only 0.5 per cent, and for two of those years (1998 and 2001) it was negative. Statistics Canada has reported. It projects 0.2 per cent growth until 2016-17, slowing to zero in 2023.

That, combined with low immigration numbers - in 2003, the province attracted 1,471 immigrants, down from 3,600 in 1996 - means an economic and cultural disaster could be brewing.

"If these demographic trends continue, Nova Scotia will experience lost economic opportunities, competitive disadvantages, declining communities, especially rural, and ever-increasing fiscal pressures including labour market shortages," warns a provincial report on immigration framework strategies, released in August.

NovaKnowledge, a non-profit group that promotes the information technology sector, has been outspoken about the province's need to attract new residents.

"Immigration is key to our economic viability. Our population, and therefore our workforce, is on the decline, and so is the number of immigrants coming and staying in Nova Scotia," said David Nantes, co-chairman of the NovaKnowledge immigration action committee.

"Private industry, academia and the community must work with government to develop an aggressive plan to increase immigration to Nova Scotia."

NovaKnowledge hopes the province will work to more than triple the number of immigrants who came here in 2003, to 5,000 by 2007.

But a regional economist warns that dire predictions about Nova Scotia's economic future may be overstated.

"Most of the economic forecasters predict slower economic growth in the next 10 to 20 years, largely because the labour growth is going to be slower," said David Chaundy of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council.

"But it doesn't mean that if your population is declining that your economy is actually declining.

"But the aging dimension is an issue, if you've got more people needing services, less people providing those services and less income to support those services."

On the other hand, Mr. Chaundy said, older people with retirement income create market niches as well.

"There are going to be gainers and losers," he said. "There hasn't been a lot of analysis looking at the impact of a five or 10 per cent decline in population." Even if economic woes do occur, simply bumping up population numbers through immigration won't solve them, Mr. Chaundy said.

Careful planning and consideration of the province's needs for labour skills must be included in any immigration strategy.

"I think that if you identify one sector, perhaps the health-care sector, and say, 'This is where we are going to be short of people, and for various reasons we aren't going to be able to attract young people in Canada into that profession and we know there's lots of highly qualified people in certain countries,' then yes, that would make sense," he said.

"What's needed is more involvement from employers and the professions."

Immigrants are the fuel that drives the engine, not the engine itself, said Nabiha Atallah of the Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association in Halifax. "The immigrant population is important to our businesses and the economic prosperity of the region, but they're only one part of the solution," Ms. Atallah said.

And immigrants who come here should also modify their expectations, she added.

"Some people come here expecting paradise, but it's never easy," she said.