New Zealand's population growth from migration set a new all time high of 55,121 people in the year to February, well up on the gain of 29,022 in the year to February 2014.
February was the seventh straight month in a row that the annual record for population gain from migration has been surpassed.
And the month of February also set a new record, with the population increasing by 7101 during the month, the highest gain in any single month since published records began in 1978.
That's equivalent to the country gaining a new town the size of Wanaka every month.
There were 11,985 people who arrived in the country on a permanent or long term basis (a year or more) in February, while 4884 departed long term, leaving a net gain of 7101.
In the year to February there were 112,614 permanent and long term arrivals and 57,493 departures, giving the net gain of 55,121.
The net gain in population is being driven by growth in the number of new arrivals and declining numbers of people leaving, however the growth in arrivals is now having a bigger impact than the reduction in people leaving.
In the year to February, the number of new arrivals increased by 15,762 compared with the previous year, while the number of departures decreased by 10,337 over the same period.
The biggest net gain (arrivals minus departures) in migrants came from India (11,786 in the year to February), followed by China (7478 plus 634 from Hong Kong), the UK (5051) and the Philippines (3786).
There was a net loss of 2562 people to Australia in the year to February, but that was the smallest annual net loss of population to Australia since the year to March 1992, Statistics NZ said.
Westpac senior economist Felix Delbruck said net migration gains had probably reached a peak, but would likely keep delivering population growth of around 5000 people a month for some time yet.
"Accordingly we remain comfortable in our view that annual net migration will approach a peak of 60,000 towards the end of the year and remain high into 2016," he said.
There was a net loss of 6649 New Zealand citizens in the year to February and a net gain of 61,770 citizens from other countries.
Net long term migration
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29 Comments
Maybe trying to eat so much at once isn't such a good idea but if you do, the python ability to expand, grow outwards in all directions could be useful..... Also feeding all that food to only one big Auckland python might not be as succesful as feeding it to many smaller pythons -Christchurch and its satelite towns, Tauanga, Hamilton, the Lake district townships......
Ok so PN has 111 properties to rent according to TM, from 1 bed to 5+ bedroom. And is gaining close to 100 immigrants a month.
Auckland has 3295 properties to rent according to TM, 1 bed to 5+ bed. And is gaining close to 3000 immigrants a month.
This sort of situation leads to ACTUAL housing shortages seen as people lining up to rent places and rents escallating. 40 applicants per PN rental now seen, as is the case in Auckland. Difference being no one knows/hears about it in PN and no new building any where to be seen for a long time... (off to Gib up a few garages....)
Welly growing at 331/month. But has 1404 rentals on TM. So situation not as tight/dire as PN or Auckland.
Waikato growing at 398/month. Has 696 rentals on TM.
So Waikato is somewhere in between the Welly situation and the PN/Auck (yes same breath...) situation.
Iron-ore prices have recently fallen further (80 was the key level, was down into the 50s recently), with hard commodity cycles taking much longer to turn around than softer commodities (dairy), so the big effects of no one leaving for AU anymore will only increase for mine.
Stats has all that info too.
Basically, a lot of indians. Most indians are on student visas, so theyre here to study, and which is why the uni citys are getting relatively high numbers. I see Otago is also doing well.
China lead the 'residence' visas, at a guess I would say this is from the earlier 2000s cycle where they started on student visas, then went to work and now after jumping the required hurdles made it to perminent. Next step often would be out the door to AU for higher incomes more jobs etc. This door no longer looking so promising. Which is why Im finding this cycle particularly interesting. The squeeze has just begun.
Would be good to break immg figure into the following categories below in each month's reporting.
Also, have their influence scales on residential house prices clearly noted. RBNZ or the Treasury has some done studies.
Suggested format:
1. NZ citizen/permanent residents return from overseas; impact scale: 10
2. New arrivals on permanent resident visa; impact scale: 10
3. New arrivals/returning on student visa; impact scale: 0
4, New arrivals/returning on working visa; impact scale:0
5. NZ citizen/PR long-term departure; impact scale: -10
etc and etc...
Just an idea
This is all well and good , but I hope the Govt understands the potential downsides of an open door migration policy .
I am broadly in favour of migration , our family are naturalised New Zelanders , and we would not want to live anywhere else .
The benefits of inward migration are obviuos , skilled migrants arrive, start work , add to the coutry's GDP immediately and widen the tax base immediately , without the public and social cost of bringing them up educating them through school , uni etc .
The downsides are less obviuos when migrants are allowed in under the extended family rules or they fall into the "hudddled masses' catagory .
They often dont find work easily , find it hard to assimilate and put pressure on social housing and social services such as health , etc .
I also think we need to reduce the immigration spigot while we are short of housing in Auckland , and resume when we have sorted it out .
We're passed it. To run a sustainable society the first step is to halt population growth, more people means more pollution, more consumption of finite resources, more destruction of natural habitats, etc, etc. All sustainability challenges are exacerbated by a higher population so step one is to announce a flat population target, some years its up, some it's down but over the long term the average is flat. This is perfectly possible as our mortality rate is higher than our birth rate. There are other viable economic models out there which could replace our current debt/growth based economy but no NZ political party (right or left) is entertaining them.
If we're going to stick with debt/growth for the near future I would much prefer a National/JK government because they support workers, not beneficiaries and run a lean govn. The only party in NZ that is talking about sustainable govn is Generation Zero but they are a mile away from achieving any traction. As long as we have debt/growth/inflation targets there will be rampant house price inflation, particularly in Auckland. The only logical thing an individual can do when faced with such madness at central and local government is buy Auckland houses, lot's of them.
The only logical thing an individual can do when faced with such madness at central and local government is buy Auckland houses, lot's of them.
Possibly not?
A Swedish scientist claims in a new theory that humanity has exceeded four of the nine limits for keeping the planet hospitable to modern life, while another professor told RT Earth may be seeing an impending human-made extinction of various species.
“[Human] beings have increased, even from 1925, from 2 billion – which is considered to be a sustainable population for human beings, according to northern European consumption standards – to 7.2 billion at this point,” he said.
“What we have also done is increased the number of domestic animals, the ones we eat and the ones that are companion animals. We have 4.3 domestic animals one for every two human beings on the planet. Cultivating the land they need creates species extinction because where they are, other organism are not. Where we cut down forests for cattle, other species are not there." Read more
Somebody explain to me why we are opening the doors to people from the third world, here to compete with our lower paid workers.
I would rather pay more for my butter chicken and have jobs for our younger people struggle to get work. Rather than have them on the scrap heap.
I would think people from China and India who qualify as immigrants would be offended to be called "third world" .
China and India was a highly civilised nations 3000 years ago while the Europeans were running around in furs, living in caves and smearing blue paint on themselves.
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO, or the Communist Bloc. The United States, Western European nations and their allies represented the First World, while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and their allies represented the Second World.
International students are essentially export $ in NZs pocket. The fees are very high. They are generally wealthy, check out the IPL cricket league to see some of the $ in India. The ones that get good degrees and then jobs and make it through to nz residency are likely to be in top quartile of productive NZers, earning gdp and helping pay the pensions of old lucky sods who were gifted nz residency by being born here
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