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Net population growth from migration has dropped back to pre-Covid levels as more NZers leave the country long term

Economy / news
Net population growth from migration has dropped back to pre-Covid levels as more NZers leave the country long term
Airport departures sign

This country's population growth from migration continues to decline sharply, with fewer people arriving in the country long term and more departing long term.

According to Statistics NZ 188,120 people arrived in this country long term in the year to August and 134,273 departed these shores long term, giving a net gain of 53,846 for the year to August.

That was down from a net gain 127,696 for the year to August 2023.

The latest figures have brought the net gain down to a level that is roughly comparable with pre-Covid levels, when there was a net gain of 56,555 in the year to August 2019.

Of the 188,120 people who arrived in the country long term in the year to August, 25,115 were NZ citizens returning after an extended stay overseas and 163,005 were non-NZ citizens.

Of the 134,273 people who departed long term, 81,196 were NZ citizens and 53,077 were non-NZ citizens.

The 134,273 departures was an all time high for the number of people leaving the country long term in any 12 month period. 

That means that overall, there was a net loss of 56,082 NZ citizens in the year to August and a net gain of 109,928 citizens of other countries.

Those figures also mean that on average, migration is currently pushing this country's population up by 1036 people a week, or 4487 people a month.

The chart below shows the long term migration trends.

Net long term migration

Select chart tabs

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34 Comments

I'd encourage my kids to go overseas for study and work.

NZ is great for my old folks.

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3

Genuine question- why don’t you live in China? You extol its virtues a lot, over and above NZ. I was impressed by it when I visited.

So genuinely interested. Is it because you have children settled into school and life here? That would be understandable 

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3

He could be from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao or anywhere else for that matter/second or third gen Kiwi. Why did you ask about China in particular?

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5

Because he / she has consistently argued the superiority of China / CCP in the past, in posts.

So isn’t it a fair assumption he/she comes from China? (Btw in case you haven’t noticed HK is part of China)

edit - I guess there’s an outside chance he is NZ born and happens to adore the CCP…

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5

laughing at silly westerners brain washed by Jewish media and knows nothing about non western world especially China.

Keep on living at the bottom of the well and feel good about it then.😂

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0

China is crumbling, back to 3rd world status you go Winnie the Pooh….

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1

Careful what you say about us silly westerners brain washed by Jewish media. We have been traveling around while all you third worlders were locked in behind closed borders.

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0

Throwing around emotive, and derogatory, ad hominens does nothing to advance a discussion, and it does nothing to suggest you are anything other than a CCP bot.

As I have said before, there’s a lot I admire about China. Since the thread is about immigration, I am genuinely interested why you reside here, rather than China, especially as you are so critical of NZ

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2

The fact that everyone is like "this is fine, all the 20 to 30yr old kiwis we have educated are leaving overseas. We can just replace them with partially educated low wage earners from third world nations" 

Everything is awesome! Everything is great if you own multiple homes! YAY!

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17

Exactly. It’s a wicked indictment on this country.

Cue Painter1 and JimboJones with their NZ apologism

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11

Its obviously a big problem. But how would you keep them?

Not long ago everyone was saying they were leaving due to the Labour party, what is the reason now?

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0

It’s nothing specific to Labour, or National 

They have both failed to deliver on what I consider to be one of the key reasons for the exodus - the hideous cost of living, and in particular housing, relative to incomes 

And there’s heaps they could have done. But both parties think the answer lies in increasing supply of housing by developers

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0

Good to be "back on track", ay?

I guess if you're wealthy and sorted (and have just changed bright-line tax law so you don't pay it) you'll be fine, ay.

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2

Because they all come back in their late 30s with young families or about to start them like I and 90% of my friends did. Nothing new here. 

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0

It would be interesting to see this broken down by age and education. Sure 1.6% emigration is huge but how many young professionals and grads are leaving? Probably a huge chunk of them. If you don't have roots here and don't even have a chance of putting down roots like home ownership and family for many years when why stay for the low salaries?

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4

If you look at the FB group "Kiwis Moving to Aussie" which has 42,200 members, 39% of members are 25-34, 30% are 35-44, 12% are 45-54.

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5

Replacing all the productive citizens fleeing with all the ones that have to come back to NZ to go on benefits. #winning

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8

Coming back to retire you reckon?

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2

The sad thing is our politicians don’t give a flying f#%k

Neither party cares for our most important citizens (ie. people working in health, education, police etc), although Labour isn’t *quite* as bad as National

 

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7
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2

So house prices to the Moon amiright?.....

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6

Queenstown might be as good a template as any for what we are doing to our country.

Lots of newly arrived, lowly paid temporary stayers, living 10 to a rented house, delivering us food from the restaurants, serving us in the shops and Uber driving us to golf. Yet as we look around, we wonder where the teachers have gone from Queenstown Primary; and the police have gone from the Camp Street station and the doctors from the Lakes District Hospital. At some stage, when the garbos can no longer afford to live in Queenstown and collect the rubbish and drive it to Victoria Flats Landfill, we'll realise that unless we keep the bedrock of society here, we too will follow those who are going today to wherever it is they have gone to avoid the squalor that overtakes us.

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12

Great post

We are heading down a very precarious slope

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1

There is a great novel by JG Ballard called High Rise - it presents an idea about what can happen when you build a community or society that is too top heavy.

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0

I watched the movie by the same name, will have to give the book a read.

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0

Guy from work came over from China with his family and as soon as he got NZ Citizenship went to live in Australia. So he is one of the NZ citizens that have left the country.

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10

I do wish some effort was put into quantifying this side of it. NZ has long been seen as a waiting room for entry to Australia.

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4

Overseas-born New Zealand citizens migrating to Australia

Since the early 2000s, people who were born outside New Zealand have made up a growing proportion of New Zealand citizens migrating to Australia.

Of New Zealand citizens who migrated to Australia in 2023, 36 percent were born outside New Zealand. This compares with an average of 33 percent in 2016–2019 (before COVID-19) and 22 percent in 2004–2011.

 

https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/net-migration-loss-to-australia-in-2023/

 

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1

Yes, then they'll be back for their Kiwi Super as it's means tested in Aus.!!

Hahahaha, that's genuinely hilarious.

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1

Wow the Kiwis flee. Meanwhile the Indians/Chinese keep arriving.

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3

most alarmingly, this is an accelerating trend

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2

No it isn't. Refer my link above.

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0

Using the graphs above - we see a big exodus after the GFC lasting ~2 years.

Wonder if this (avoidable) recession will see the same thing. Is it just about to hit us now?

(Those that believe immigration has direct relationship with house prices must be getting a tad worried.)

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2

If only we had a land border. We could cut a few holes in the fence and look the other way. Problem solved.

 

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0