Population growth from migration surged to a new all time high of 58,259 in the year to June.
The latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show that 115,655 people came to this country on a permanent and long-term basis in the 12 months to June, while 57,396 departed, leaving a net gain of 58,259.
The figures show that population growth from migration is rising at a meteoric rate compared with previous years, with a net gain of 38,338 in the year to June 2014, 7907 in the year to June 2013 and a net loss `of 3191 people in the year to June 2012.
The biggest net sources of migrants in the year to June were India (12,031), followed by China and Hong Kong (8668), The Philippines (4299), the UK (4263), France (2817), Germany (2810) and South Africa (1643).
More people are continuing to move to Australia than arrive from that country, with a net loss of 1185 people to Australia in the year to June, but that is well down on the net loss of 8325 in the year to June 2014 and the net loss of 31,246 in the year to June 2013.
There was net loss of 5644 New Zealand citizens in the year to June and a net gain of 63,903 citizens from other countries.
The biggest growth in migration has come from India, with the net gain from that country more than doubling over the last three years from 5120 in the year to June 2013, to 6998 in the year to June 2014 and 12,031 in the 12 months to June this year.
There has also been significant net migration growth from China and The Philippines over the last two years.
Conversely, the net migration gain from the UK has declined steadily from 6304 in the year to June 2013, to 5522 in the year to June 2014 and 4263 in the 12 months to June this year.
The strong migration inflows are expect to maintain the pressure on the Auckland housing market, with around 60% of permanent and long term migrants expected to settle in the region.
In a First Impressions newsletter on the latest migration figures, Westpac senior economist Felix Delbruck said he expected a slow down in migration.
"We expect net migration will start to slow as the year progresses, but at a gradual pace," the newsletter said.
"Reconstruction activity in Canterbury is at a peak and the wider New Zealand economy has come off the boil, which will in time make New Zealand a less attractive destination for migrants.
"Today's numbers will make little difference if any to the Reserve Bank's determination to cut the OCR on Thursday," the newsletter said.
Net long term migration
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71 Comments
How are so many Indians getting residency??
There seem to be large numbers taking low paid work in service stations, McDonalds, etc. how does that benefit NZ??
They are just stealing our jobs.
Surely immigration should be restricted to highly skilled and productive people? Not just open borders for more low skill workers.
We need to stop immigration - Auckland is full!
If they complete their studies and get a job at a specific type of employer they can apply for permanent residency. That's why they'd b volunteering. Anything to land a full time role with the company at end of study. Permanent residency i believe can then lead to bringing family over once a few further hurdles are passed
Good on them to. We take for granted what we have for free simply by being born here. We are all earthlings segregation by country of birth is no different to racism. Ppl will get this way of thinking eventually as the world becomes more and more global.
Surely it is illegal to work for nothing unless employed by a charitable entity, or via a regulated employment scheme? I mean NZ students want work experience too, but they apply via formalized schemes, normally offered through universities, where such work experience is regulated and overseen.
Thanks - so working for free for a profit organisation is considered a breach of the student/work/visitor visa regulations:
Non-paid on-the-job training before commencement of paid employment or non-paid work experience with commercial business is not regarded as voluntary work, since both training and/or work experience can be considered gain/reward.
I'd have thought so. Hence, if one gets a resume from a student/work/visitor visa holder that states voluntary work has been undertaken at a for profit employer - then that employer should be reported to Dept of Labour - the folks whose website that link is to.
I find this revelation that many foreign nationals living in NZ on temporary visas might be working "voluntarily" in the private sector particularly disturbing.
segregation by country of birth is no different to racism.
Sounds a bit like Marx's vision for a 'stateless, classless society' - which could be interpreted to mean, no boarders and free movement of people (as opposed to free movement of capital, which is what we have presently).
I say interpreted because although he did an amazing job of critiquing the history of capitalism - and an almost uncanny job at predicting some of the likely future consequences - he never gave any detail in outlining how 'post-capitalism' would function.
Hence I think you are talking about a notion of utopia - which is what he (what little he did say) was talking about as well. Not that I have any disagreements with notions of utopia, but I figure if I ever see it , it'll be when I get to heaven (i.e., it is probably something beyond human capability to conceive and construct). But, then hope springs eternal.
“Good on them to. We take for granted what we have for free simply by being born here. We are all earthlings segregation by country of birth is no different to racism. Ppl will get this way of thinking eventually as the world becomes more and more global”
Who takes it for granted? Kiwis are losing it. It’s not free; Kiwi ancestors fought and made this country with a mind for their children. Different countries have different ways of doing things and different values. Why do those people want to leave those countries in the first place? Probably because it’s a dog eat dog kind of place. Guess what …NZ is becoming more dog eats dog. Ppl will get that idealistic thinking while young and in a class room from a lecturer who hasn’t worked a real job. It reality it is nonsense.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11751619/It-…
"how does that benefit NZ?"
I have asked this question several times on here, answer seems to be; no one knows.
There has not been any comprehensive study done on this to my knowledge.
High immigration fits the ideology of the wonks at treasury and the Nats and the big corporations think it's just great to have a steady stream of desperate third world immigrants but what is the real result?
Since we have only anecdotal evidence my conclusion is that we have imported hordes of Asian taxi drivers, $2 shop operators, takeaway proprietors and prostitutes as well as useless clipboard wielding inspectors from the UK.
Bit like the housing thing really - no proper facts to go on so we can all feel free to believe whatever we want.
You are making an assumption that high levels of immigration are lowering wages generally, you are probably correct as least as far as the bottom half of the population are concerned.
My point was that we just don't know. You would think that something as important as this would have been studied at length.
The median income for all adult NZers is about $30,000 before tax but including government transfers. Half of us are receiving less than that. You might think that's plenty, I don't. The recent calculation was that a living adult wage was about $19/hour or $38,000 per year for a 40 hour week.
We have orchardists and farmers in our area that habitually use third world and itinerant foreign labour, unfortunately we can't survive on $14.75/hour.
I was responding to Chris_J's comment. In particular that they are stealing our jobs. Well I doubt it's anything to do with skills, rather a willingness to muck in for the wages on offer.
I agree with what you are saying. I always marvelled at how anyone gets by on average wage in this country in particular young families. Getting a real taste of it now personally due to our household income being cut to a third of what it was. If it wasn't for the fact our mortgage was so low and on floating that we could cut repayments to a paltry amount then its a real scare as to where we could have been. I can only see tough times ahead for many who over leveraged on the assumption that what goes up (house prices and wages) won't go down.
I'm just wondering how the majority of them pass the immigration tests.
The Indian practical degrees aren't much good, although the theoretical side seems ok (ie often better than NZ - although hard to tell we have so few indigenous top end academics who stay in NZ....)
Year ended June 2015, source: http://www.stats.govt.nz/~/media/Statistics/Browse%20for%20stats/IntTra…
Number % of total
Residence 13,784 11.9%
Student 25,785 22.3%
Work 35,243 30.5%
Visitor 5,121 4.4%
NZ and Australian citizens 34,871 30.2%
Other 851 0.7%
In other words, student, worker, and visitor, knowingly and positively contribute to NZ economy, make up 57.2% of the so called 'permanent and long term' immigrants.
They are not permanent, nor are they long-term. A period of 3 years is regarded as long term?
It is probably fair to count students as long-term, as they will be replaced by other students once they finish studying (i.e., be counted as an outflow) and/or it might even have a more compounding effect than that, as one wonders whether they are counted a second time when/if they convert their visa from student to permanent resident after completing study.
In other words, unless we decide to cap overseas enrollments at our universities (or overseas economic settings change markedly - which of course they could) - the net numbers are likely to be permanent growth in resident population numbers.
But then I'm not a statistician by any means!
Just bite the bullet kate and buy some of that quality high yielding p.n real estate (southern end pn where new cycle bridge over river and inland port are going) before the pn 'housing shortage' story spreads around the agents and prices double again like last time immigration numbers got this high.
Remember large numbers leave the regions for overseas (OEs etc) so if we are to assume that the number leaving was even spread across NZ and the number arriving was skewed towards Auckland, there is the potential that Auckland gained more than the net number of migrants ie over 60,000
Incorrect. The figures i quoted/used are NET so take into account incoming and outgoing. See page 11 of statsnz xl doc.
Greg, of the undeclared why on earth would all these be auckland and not simply proportioned similarly to net rates i.e only 46% going to auckland?
Are you really sure about this
There was net loss of NZ "citizens" in the year to June and a net gain of 63,903 "citizens" from other countries. The gain of 63,903 citizens implies we are handing out instant citizenship (on arrival)
Are you sure they are citizens or could they be residents who were not "citizens"
There is a difference
There was a net loss of 5644 NZ citizens because more NZers left the country permanently in the year to June than came back to it from overseas.
The net gain of 63,903 is the net number of citizens from other countries, such as India, the UK and China, that arrived here on a permanent or long term baisis (after allowing for permanent departures). They may or may not subsequently become NZ citizens.
Year Ended 2015 NZ imported 357 ready-made multi-millionaires
comment by Zee in NZ Herald under John Armstrong's article
interesting information from Immigration NZ website.
Data Source: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/stati…
Approved residency applications in financial year 2014/2015 under "Significant Investor" category per country of applicant
Country Approved applications
China 207
Malaysia 24
Japan 18
USA 18
Hong Kong 16
Great Britain 12
Singapore 11
Switzerland 6
Czech Rep. 4
Indonesia 4
Russia 4
Spain 4
Thailand 4
Cambodia 3
India 3
Mexico 3
South Africa 3
Sweden 3
France 2
Germany 2
Macau 2
Taiwan 2
Iran 1
South Korea 1
By the way, according to Immigration NZ website they can approve only 300 residency application per year in "Investor" category*. The above figures come to 357 approval, about 20% higher than the quote... Source: Immigration stats
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=1…
Better to have millionaires arriving than bums. Perhaps just restrict them from buying Auckland residential property until they become citizens.
If only 3 of the Indians and 207 of the Chinese were millionaires, then what about the other 20,000? How come they can all arrive and buy so many million dollar Auckland properties??
Don't forget our local born and bred bums. Heaps of them around collecting working for families because they have failed in life and can't support a family on their own. Instead the winners of our society have to hold their hands. And they [bums] have the nerve to call themselves men.
That's a bit rough - I'm not a multi-millionaire - far from it
I am a locally produced boomer-cum-bum. In the 1980's was considered as being in the top 10% of income earners in NZ. Then, marriage breakdown, family asset split, right in the midst of the takeovers and mergers mania and 1987 market crash, sell-out to overseas companies, lost top job, difficult finding good paying job thereafter - pretty average kiwi bum after that - now I'm being pushed down the nz-socio-economic ladder - watching all these high-rollers rock in - and now I learn I just went down another 357 notches
Rubbish, the outcome, if not the intent of Welfare for Families is to put a ceiling on wages by providing wage subsidies to employers who no longer need to meet their workers demand for income commensurate with the costs of living in New Zealand. Yes its an indirect subsidy, but still a subsidy nonetheless. This is the consensus in economic and political circles about the consequences of the British Speenhamland relief system for the poor which was established in the wake of the French Revolution. The effects of the WFF are more severe, because it is universal, unlike the Speenhamland system which varied across the different regions and parishes in Britain.
But it's not a subsidy to the employers.
Because many employers can barely afford what they're paying now, let alone have money to pay better wages and deleverage/upgrade-tech as they should be doing. For those employers to pay the extra wages, they need to put prices up (reduces sales) or sell more (how? to whom?) or deliver more efficiently (cut staff?)
So again its the consumer being subsidised. so they can afford to keep the economy going. which is really daft because the 2 biggest expenses of everyone _local_ to New Zealand is wages and tax.
I think house is next - but housing is either freehold (bought and paid off) or rented. But the rental rate is about 0.6% per month of asset value - you'll not get rates that cheap if you rent a car, hotel room, or from an equipment rental firm.
Which points to construction/ownsership cost of [new] housing is too high, creating a captive market, and forcing everyone to pour excessive resources into housing (and repayment of foreign yield) to stay compliant - ie there can be lower cost competition to allow lower expenses and higher disposable income. (This includes rates and insurance as being too high as they come through in housing cost and are thus captive, reducing disposable, destroying VoM)
Electricity, communications, and travel are next
I wonder if the government will employ these rather imaginative techniques to massage the unemployment statistics.
"Some people on the government's welfare-to-work scheme are being inappropriately pushed towards self-employment, the BBC has learned.
It found they were being encouraged off unemployment benefit, so they can claim more money from working tax credits.
The work programme pays companies for helping people into sustained employment - including self-employment."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-21260331
I wonder if the government will employ these rather imaginative techniques to massage the unemployment statistics.
"Some people on the government's welfare-to-work scheme are being inappropriately pushed towards self-employment, the BBC has learned.
It found they were being encouraged off unemployment benefit, so they can claim more money from working tax credits.
The work programme pays companies for helping people into sustained employment - including self-employment."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-21260331
sorry some of us have honour and respect. Don't make much ripping others off , unlike yourself.
Many of us also got the thin end of the stick when it came to education (and never realised how badly our colleges and primary schools were until we got into different communities).
But hey keep talking. Privilege oftens earns it's sticky end...
It is just too easy to get into NZ. And that is the real issue with the Auckland housing market - the Key govt has let too many people in and the Chinese in particular have plenty of money or easy access to it at very low interest rates. A key criteria to obtaining residency is to buy a property worth $1m or more as an investment, or if it's a family home you must buy within 12 months of arriving. How crazy is that? But of course real estate agencies and law firms with their Chinese units, mortgage brokers etc are making a fortune on the Chinese immigration gravy train and you will not hear them complaining.
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/alreadyinnz/residents/nex…
Not forgetting that this government recently changed the investment rules such that the 'investment' made to qualify could also include residential real estate. I believe previously much of that 'investment' went into government bonds instead.
It is the effect on the housing market of this change by National to those immigration rules that I'd like to understand better - and I've seen no present data analysis on that.
I think that change has had a big effect.
The single biggest mistake that the government has made and most likely the sole reason Auckland real estate prices have outstripped the rest of NZ and exceeded the growth rates of any other major Western city. Key, Joyce, English, Smith etc have a lot to answer for, but they are in total denial.
The timing of the immigration rules to include residential real estate directly correlates with the explosion in Auckland house prices. This is why 50% of all of Barfoots sales in Feb/Mar/Apr at or above $1m were to people with Chinese names - that's not racist - it's an economic fact! Nothing to do with off shore based buyers. This govt has screwed up badly or is this just all part of sucking up to China that has been a key platform of this government?
When has national immigration strategy been put to the electorate? New Zealand First may have had a stance on this, but what about the other parties?
The hardest thing in all this is trying to discern the underlying policy. What are our total immigration objectives? When did we have the opportunity to assess or agree with them?
The details of points systems, or even specifying the amounts of money required, don't add up to a policy.
Someone needs to call a spade , as spade , and recognise that our immigration policy is in disarray .
There are hundreds of known cases of immigration fraud .
A North Shore immigration ex- lawyer ( struck off) was found guilty of about 90 cases , and has gone on appeal against the sentence .
Its likely the tip of the iceberg .
Also the rules are too vague and subject to manipulation ......... an investor migrant can buy a coffee shop for an inflated price from a "rigger" , and employ his newly printed Kiwi relatives and get in on the investor category........ its a farce
The Chief Political commentator on TV3 (Gower)has just accused Labour (Little in particular) of 'being deeply cynical' and ' driving a wedge between groups of Kiwis for political gain'......(relating to the Auckland housing survey row)
I wasn't aware that chief political reporters were there to make value calls on such (or any) issues. Do we have any media left that has not been captured by the interests of the ruling party? Seriously?
Michael Reddell's blog
http://croakingcassandra.com/
I have had Official Information Act requests in for some time with Treasury and MBIE for copies of advice to ministers on the economic impacts of immigration, and on the target level of permanent residence approvals. As is customary with government agencies, the responses to the requests have both been extended/delayed. These aren’t particularly time-sensitive requests, but I will be interested to see what the departments have had to say. MBIE is well-known to be strongly pro-immigration, and I have heard reported that current Secretary to the Treasury (himself a temporary migrant) recently reiterated in private a view that “immigration is good; it is as simple as that” (repeating the tenor of comments in a speech earlier this year). Perhaps, but let’s see the argumentation, in the specific context of New Zealand, and in the light of cross-country economic history and experience.
http://croakingcassandra.com/2015/07/16/the-productivity-commission-loo…
MBIE gave $5.5 m for a study of Superdiversity in Auckland ( a loaded concept).
Indian students in NZ often attend Indian-run "colleges" which mostly exist on paper teacing stuff like homeopathy and produce no tangible education outcomes. This scam has been going on for many years now and is still becoming more popular. Paying rip-off fees to the fellow Indians running those "schools" is simply seen as the cost of the entry ticket to NZ.
Having said that, I know enough Indians in NZ who would like to see the fraud stamped out. They came to live in a better place and not to see now whole suburbs being turned into little Indias. Just drive through Sandringham to see how it is descending into squalor.
What the goody-goody untertalented journo crowd is not getting is that there are still enough people who migrate to the "West" to live in the West and not in multiculti-land. Even they wish we would be more assertive and less gullible/indifferent. But it is easier to write articles with no real content, just blabbering about what is goody-goody and what not rather than putting in tedious investigation.
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