The population of Newfoundland and Labrador dropped slightly the first three months of this year over the last quarter of 2019.

Statistics Canada’s numbers from the first quarter show that Canada as a whole is nudging up against 38-million people.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s population dropped from 521,922 in December to 521,365 during this quarter, a margin of 0.2 per cent. Statistics Canada projects a drop of close to a thousand people during the second quarter of this year.