This country's population had a net gain (the excess of long term arrivals over long term departures) of 4100 people in December, down from its peak of 5200 in October and the lowest monthly net gain since May last year when it was 4000, according to Statistics NZ.
However the high migrant inflows during the earlier months of last year meant the annual net population gain from migration was 50,900 in 2014, the first time it has ever exceeded 50,000 a year.
Over the last 20 years the net gain of migrants has averaged 13,300 a year.
Total migrant arrivals reached a new high of 109,300 last year compared with 94,000 in 2013, a 16% increase.
At the same time, the number of people leaving the country permanently declined 18% to 58,400 last year, compared with 71,500 in 2013.
The biggest growth in migrant arrivals last year came from India, up 4600 compared with 2013, Australia, up 3700, China, up 1300 and the
Philippines, up 1200.
The fall in migrant departures last year was mainly due to fewer New Zealand citizens moving to Australia.
That has dropped steadily over the last two years, from 48,800 in 2012, to 23,700 in 2014.
For the whole of last year, the net loss to Australia was 3800 people, compared with 19,600 in 2013 and 38,800 in 2012.
Around the regions, Auckland's population gain from migration was 23,000 last year, followed by Canterbury (6000), Waikato (1800), Otago (1400), Wellington (1400) and Bay of Plenty (1200).
Statistics NZ said the net gain of migrants in Auckland, Canterbury and Otago was mainly due to more people arriving, while in the Waikato, Wellington and Bay of Plenty it was mainly due to fewer people leaving.
Net long term migration
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26 Comments
Wow , a milestone alright .
We however need some intropsection about whether we can just keep doing this .
For example , is it sustaianble ?
Can we accomodate so many migrnats without making housing so expensive that my kids will only afford to rent converted sheds and garages ?
Is the labour abosorption rate going to stay at current levels ?
Are we getting the "right ' migrants , ie young , skilled , healthy and strong folk who will work and contribute to our GDP ?
Or
Are we getting extended family members with no skills who will not find work
Or
Worse , Grandparents brought here as a cheap altenative to Kindy costs , and who are likely to burden the the already strained health system and force us to change the NZ Super ?
You've nailed it Boatman. In the short term it allows the Gov't to keep GDP increasing year on year and keep the Ponzi monetary sytem going. All the problems with increased immigration will come in the future when JK and his mates will probably be living in Hawaii having sold all their investment properties.
My next door neighbour had his retired parents come to NZ on the family category two years ago. He and his wife and children left for Australia last year leaving his 70+ year old parents still living in NZ.
Just absolutely absurd.
What a bunch of imbeciles in charge... letting in thousands of marginally skilled impoverished foreigners with a poor grasp of english into a country which is suffering an extreme shortage of housing and plenty of locals still struggling to find decent work!
Key clearly doesn't monopolise good ideas... he just runs with blinking stupid ones...
Problem is if they let in hundreds of thousands of wealthy foreigners... we'll they don't get wealthy by contributing more than they've been taking, and since they have more money than the locals they have significant advantage in premium housing, premium training and business competition, and worst of all in influencing policies.
C.f. White land owners in Zibabwe. Are we going to have to find some "veterans" to win our own property back in NZ?
(epigraph)
By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring.- Evan Thomas, Newsweek
..................and still we wait. When are the opposition parties going to wake up and put the torchlight on this craziness? When are they going to start linking it to housing, resource depletion, transport woes and the billions needed to rectify. I just don't get the reluctance to go alll guns blazzing on immigraton as a key driver??? Can any labour insiders shed some light pse?
more people voted for him than usual...many who swore previously they'd never vote for Winston. But he has a bad habit of trying to be kingmaker rather than run a full party attempting to win the election. Sadly NZ government and voters are still stuck in the 2 and a bit party system
As NZ goes thru a purple patch we can accommodate the arrivals and they certainly are industrious.
What happens when the cycle turns is the question. Some observations.
Young Asian couple moved in next door. Scene changes a year later and their inlaws join them. No English whatever. Then a baby comes along. A year later the young couple dissapear stage left leaving the old couple in charge of the young boy. I presume they went back to the old country to run the family business having successfully set up the bolt hole and got some good health care for the folks. Question is who is paying NZ tax and is there a process to capture this apparent loophole.
Later on in the North Shore hospital I spy another old Asian couple. Neither looks like they speak English. He is trying to tell the nurse what is wrong with himself, touching his side and going ooh ahh. Wonder how that turned out for him.
Then I do some parent help at the local (doesn't look local to me) primary school. Asian kids everywhere - very few who speak English. The teacher is overwhelmed and tells me she basically just turns up and goes through the motions. The bilingual kids serve as translators and basically run the show.
What Greg forgets to mention is that the increase in arrivals is due entirely to an increase in those with work visas and student visas. Both fixed term but meeting the definition of long term. Those arriving on resident visas have actually declined by 30% over the last ten years.
A big increase in work visas happened after the Canterbury earthquakes. Every second person in the English city now speaks with an Irish accent.
6,122 of these immigrants were UK residents on work visas; huge percentage of these will be Brit under-25's doing their OE.
The students, of course, are pouring money into our education system.
Still let's all bay for a halt in immigration. That should go well.
difficult to be certain about counterfactuals, key skills shortages could still be addressed
with substantially lower immigration. With lower immigration, labour market flexibility and
possible offsets from reduced emigration would likely play a greater role in addressing
51
skills pressures."
Thanks, jh. The Fry report is really interesting reading. She doesn't really come to any firm conclusions as the whether the country is better or worse off economically for the current levels of migration.
Although she did conclude that it was likely that migration caused house price rises she also apportioned equal blame to the sluggish supply of new houses and land use restrictions.
I was not convinced by the graph she published that shows a superficial correlation between rates of migration and house price movements. For me to be totally convinced I would have to see a consistent effect of changes in migration rates followed by changes in house price movements. But the last fifity years data just don't show that consistency; sometimes house price movements precede chages in migration rates.
In fact the recent honking lifts in house prices in Auckland don't correlate at all well with the migration data. If anything, they correlate with the formation of the supercity and the election of Len Brown as mayor.
which i dont understand, these are not highly skilled or professionals, they wont earn much foreign exchange (and in fact will send money home) and also they will be future burdens on the state for healthcare etc. The skills is also something NZers could do well enough.
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