Migration continues to soar to new highs with a record net population gain of 71,305 in the 12 months to January, according to Statistics NZ.
That was driven by 128,290 people arriving in this country on a permanent or long term basis, less 56,985 who departed long term.
That compares with a net gain of 65,911 in the 12 months to January 2016, 53,797 in the 12 months to January 2015 and 25,666 in the year to January 2014, meaning population growth from migration has nearly trebled over the last three years
The biggest source country for migrants in the 12 months to the end of January was Australia, with 25,681 arriving from that country of whom nearly two thirds were returning New Zealand citizens.
That was followed by 14,678 from the UK, then 12,345 from China and another 1095 from Hong Kong, followed by India 9985, South Africa 4801, Germany 4517, the USA 4343 and France 4305.
The country made a net gain of 73,034 non-New Zealand citizens and a net loss of 1729 existing citizens over the 12 months.
By visa type, the biggest single group arriving in this country were on work visas (42,400) followed by 37,900 New Zealand or Australian citizens (who do not require visas), 24,300 on student visas and 16,700 on residence visas.
Those numbers will bring little cheer to those struggling to cope with the housing crisis and other infrastructure issues in Auckland, where most new migrants settle.
Statistics NZ said 56,231 arriving migrants said they intended to settle in Auckland during the year, although the actual numbers are likely to be closer to 65,000 because nearly 20,000 migrants did not state where they intended to live and many of those are also likely to have settled in Auckland.
Net long term migration
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99 Comments
Labour set it up when there was a net outflow, pre-GFC, and we were losing people to the UK OE, and booming Aussie mines. The bunch of useless dopes who took over in 2008 have failed to adjust to changing circumstances. Newsflash, National. If you're going to pile new people in on top of returning kiwis, then something has to be done to accommodate them. If you're incapable of getting your heads out of your arses long enough to change policy settings so that the increase can be a) absorbed; or b) slowed to the point where it can be absorbed, then get out of the damn way. Sticking your fingers in your ears and going 'la la la I can't hear you, what housing crisis' has well and truly reached it's use-by date. Poop or get off the pot, English.
Shush, you. They're hoping that we're all dumb enough to overlook that and swallow their empty self-serving spin.
Another arm to this unholy mess that tends to be overlooked is that Australia are deporting hundreds of NZ-born long-term residents, some of them serious criminals, many with no family or support here, and Immigration are struggling to cope with that.
Bill English has the record for the highest migration to Australia 40,000
(53,900 kiwis decided to move to Australia in the year to August 2012. About 13,900 moved in the opposite direction.
That gave a net loss of migrants to Australia in the year of 40,000, the highest figure ever recorded.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=108…
Most of the migrants moving in both directions were New Zealand citizens, Statistics NZ said
Why did they leave? Australia were still doing well and Bill English had raised GST in 2010. They left in droves to try and get ahead.
When everything is too much and start spilling out to the roadside...only in DGZ LOL!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&o…
"Benefit" ?
Only benefit has been to sell & get out of Auckland
Yes Labour used housing as an artificial source of prosperity but National turboed the housing market further allowing foreigners to freely speculate making untaxable capital gains and allowing massive migration numbers unchecked
No wonder John Key bailed ! He ran out of ideas
And you know who campaigned on the housing crisis in 2007, citing the urgent need to address it lest Kiwis lose the prospect of home ownership? Plenty of us voted for him.
Yes, that's right - that same investment banker who oversaw a worse sell-off of New Zealand than ever before, who pretended for the next eight years that there was no housing crisis at all.
So cruel Mr Strauss !
John tried really hard to sell off those assets
Assets built up by the people of New Zealand
All that was, was a slick way to bolster the govts books and spend it on schools & hospitals.........wasn't that the jargon he spun us all ?
Can anyone tell me what John Key actually achieved ?
Overated by far
Boatman either knows something nobody else does or he is spreading false information
Some time ago, the chairman of the NZ Initiative acknowledged that there are no New Zealand specific studies demonstrating the economic gains to New Zealanders from large-scale non-citizen immigration. There still aren’t
https://croakingcassandra.com/category/new-zealand-initiative/
@ 2 other guys I beg to differ , migrants are good for us
They arrive , dont qualify for handouts , so they must work , pay tax and thereby contribute to our GDP , and its quick too , we dont need to put them through school , they arrive and must start as soon as possible, and for the most part they do this efficiently and effectively
The positive spin-offs are endless :-
Every migrant needs a home ( that must be built or availed in some way )
Every migrant must eat , so consumption goes up
Every migrant will use either a car or public transport and this involves consumption
All this economic activity is good for us
Boatman ......there are no free lunches filling your city with migrants
Anyone who has been to a beach reserve like Long Bay or Waiake knows the price.
Then there are all those extra cars you say migrants buy that add to the already overcrowded roads
Go check out any hospital emergency ward and witness who is clogging the waiting rooms
The govt doesn't even provide enough $ for its public schools to operate now without donations and then allows massive numbers or new migrants & families to clog them still further.
Extra consumption does not add to a net positive necessarily at all
If it did I would still be happy to live in my hometown Auckland
How about reading it then?
Jonesy I have read Labour's housing "policy document " more than once , what I dont get is :-
1) How are we going to pay for it
2) How are they going to fund the shortfall
3) Its outdated , and was put together by David Shearer when land in Auckland was $200 k , its now $600k to $800 k for a section .
Simply , Labour needs to revise its plan and show us HOW its going to work
If they can do this , I will vote for them
Boatman you are intelligent enough to know that fully costed out manifestos don't come until the last few months of the election campaign.
In the meantime you could read Andrew Little's speech to the Property Council from a few months ago to get some clues.
http://www.labour.org.nz/andrew_little_speech_to_the_property_council_s…
Lets not get too carried away here , and start all the hand wringing, to which we are prone when we receive news no to our liking .
These figures are people who are arriving, but who could have applied to NZIS as long back as 2015, way before the settings were changed
It can take up to 2 years to get a visa allowing you to live or work here
The figures are reflective of the time delays between when migrants apply for residence or work visas and the time they actually obtain or a granted the visas and then the time it takes for them to wind up their affairs overseas and actually arrive here and the visa is issued .
Overall inward migration of newcomers is set to fall under the changes announced last year
Auckland infrastructure already collapsing - roads constantly clogged, raw sewage pouring into the harbor each time it rains, schools and hospitals overflowing and a shortage of housing - but hey lets take in another 71,000 people....
Just insane ideological madness...at this rate the NZ way of life they are all flocking to will be destroyed in 20 years. Shameful shortsightedness.
Yeah.
Looks like National are selling NZ short on the international labour markets. The short-term need of businesses to expand their bottom lines through more consumer demand and cheaper labour has a caught our government's interest and is being prioritized over our living standards. The government is blindly denying the existence of crises by citing random numbers that have no qualitative appeal to them.
Please can we have a new rule for immigration. No one who has worked in the Government sector for more than 3 years should be allowed in except in exceptional circumstances. I moved here from England 25 years ago to get away from the society they had so degraded. I am very worried about the silly ideas held by those who work in government. They actually believe that more control and more civil servants is the answer.
Where getting the people but not the infrastructure, The NZ taxpayer is yet to provide that. Our export earnings have gone down. Our wages are breadline and not going up any time soon and the deficit of infrastructure is tomorrows financial problem. Our youth and wage earners are locked into a cycle of poverty.
It does concern me that the effects from climate change may create future pressures to migrate from too many countries, thus creating overwhelming numbers and its resultant problems for initially overly welcoming countries. The time to be more pragmatic and cautious is now.
I am tired of voting for what's good for the country. I have been disappointed every time, not the least with the immediate past PM, who had promise, but in the end acted as most politicians before him, only in his own and party's vested interest. I should be so stupid to think otherwise..
I will be voting for I, ME, MYSELF, and give my vote to which ever party will give ME the best deal. There are so many examples on this site of the poor old long suffering taxpayer being rorted and I for one am sick of it..time for me, I think..roll on the next election.
... but but but ... guys .... c'mon .... if we limit immigration to more sensible levels , house prices may stop going up ...
And how the heck are we all gonna get rich then , huh ?
... we'll be forced to get jobs , to start businesses , to innovate and create ....
Stuff that for a joke ... way too much effort ... open the flood-gates , let more in !
"Statistics NZ said 56,231 arriving migrants said they intended to settle in Auckland during the year, although the actual numbers are likely to be closer to 65,000 because nearly 20,000 migrants did not state where they intended to live and many of those are also likely to have settled in Auckland."
Stats data shows 34660 (Net) to Auckland in year to Jan 2017.
I see a letter in the mail today from a local corporate farmer wanting houses to rent for workers. They will pay the rent and guarantee the house is maintained. There is nothing to rent round here, houses sell with in hours.
So we get a low interest rate, along with a low growth economy that comes with low interest rates, why do we want to share the wealth we do have amongst more and more people?
Interesting that USA total population growth for 2016 was 0.7% and UK was 0.6%. No wonder Auckland is grinding to a halt - NZ's population growth rate is much higher than many developing countries (which are not well known for their free flowing traffic and wide open spaces).
I can't wait for all the wailing in the DGZ to commence when they have to re-write the boundaries on the zone map... both Grammar schools are already at capacity and this influx will hasten intensification inside the DGZ.
What's going to happen to that DGZ house premium when you're no longer DGZ???
This morning we have South African educated, ex journalist Jason Krupp of the NZ initiative 'think tank' patting us on the head and saying there, there, little Kiwis we have researched immigration and its all good. So stop your worrying children. We know best. We will allow some disagreement with our views but unlike that red neck Peters, make sure you only do so with 'facts' or its time out for you. Emotive nonsense such as 'no-one asked the people if they wanted academics to drive a massive restructuring of NZs demographic and cultural mix' , arise from proletarian ignorance so will be rejected by this ivory tower.
Err, one slight problem in Krupps pro-immigration lobbying - he admits ...gasp of surprise..... that immigrants are in fact competing for rental housing. Ahh - but that is the fault of the national government for not building enough houses or roads. You can't blame immigrants for that, apparently.
We are also told we need to find ways to address 'concerns' about infrastructure capacity. (choked roads and stressed education and health systems are not really realities, just 'concerns').
Immigrants are also not taking low skill jobs, Krupp assures us. Proof is vacancy rates for these positions apparently. That immigration itself is driving increases in these low skilled jobs in a self reinforcing circle, is not commented on. Krupp also remains silent on the national scandal of 70,000 Kiwi born kids languishing on the welfare scrap heap while immigrants 'have good employment outcomes'. One visit to an immigrant labour concentrated service business explains why that is.
And he is silent on why record immigration is dismally failing to increase Kiwi per capita productivity. Which should be a primary objective of immigration.
I'm over being lectured by think tank lobbyists on what immigration policy my country of birth should have.
Labour Party comment:
Today’s release of latest immigration statistics is further proof the Government has absolutely no plan for immigration and its impact on New Zealand, says Labour’s Immigration spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway.
“The statistics show another year in which records have been broken – in January 2017 71,300 more permanent and long term migrants moved to New Zealand – an increase of 4.7 per cent in one year alone.
“A huge proportion of our new migrants, 56,231, are moving straight to Auckland, which is an 8.5 per cent lift from last year.
“A Government with a plan would know how to better distribute new migrants around our regions, take pressure off of Auckland housing and infrastructure, and provide workers to areas that need them.
“Migration has been one of the central drivers of rising house prices, which are now continuing throughout New Zealand as the Auckland housing crisis ripples out to the regions.
“And the people paying the price for National’s inability to plan for immigration include the 2,600 vulnerable Kiwi families needing to be housed in motels because there simply isn’t enough state or affordable housing to meet the needs of New Zealand families.
“The largest portion of migrants coming to New Zealand are those given temporary work visas – up 11% in a year. National can’t simply spin the tired old line of ‘Kiwis coming home’ as the reason why New Zealand continues to set records in net migration.
“It’s clear Bill English has no plan for immigration and National can’t cope with the impacts on housing prices, infrastructure and the labour force. A major reason why so many migrants flock to Auckland is because the Government has no plan for regional economic development.
“Labour will create opportunities in the regions that will be attractive to high skilled migrants, such as our recently-announced Centre for Digital Excellence in Dunedin and a prefabricated building materials plant in Gisborne.
“Labour’s KiwiBuild programme would deliver 100,000 affordable homes for all New Zealanders across the country, providing much-needed housing stock for all New Zealanders, including our most recent arrivals,” says Iain Lees-Galloway.
Reading between the lines, there is no indication here that Labour is intending to do anything about it (beyond building houses, which we know takes years, or encouraging immigrants to go to Ekatahuna). Are they still following their policy of not offending anyone (as in don't increase the age for the eligibility for Super, no property tax), or they in thrall to the same well-financed elite that National is? Depressing.
Winnie, save us!
Good but...don't really like their idea of regional distribution - far from convinced it works.
Why don't they promote lower immigration? Ah yes, because they have fallen into the trap of thinking such a policy is somehow xenophobic...mainstream parties ey? Drongos
Really surprised Labour are not hitting infrastructure structure impacts harder. Bleating on - rightly - about housing only appeals to one segment of the population.
If they started focussing just as heavily on impacts on roading, healthcare and schooling they might start getting more of the centre right's support
Labour aren't saying they will control immigration, there saying they will spread them out around NZ. They just don't get it that we don't need more people! we don't need to borrow money to build infrastructure for more people. We don't need to compromise our lifestyle to improve the lifestyle of the people that want to come here. We can't absorb the worlds over population so why trash our country pretending we can.
Labour started this population growth frenzie and have learnt nothing. Vote Winston!!
Labour Party comment: Blah, blah, blah.......either tell me you're going to cap immigration at a level the country can actually handle (probably 25-30k pa) or don't bother speaking at all.
You might get a handful of immigrants to Gisborne to work in your prefabrication plant, but it's insignificant.
We need real measures, and we need them now!
A waste of time lobbying MPs. As already observed by some on this thread, the entire Bowen circle (excluding Peters) has been fully captured by 'the more the merrier' re-engineering of NZ society agenda pushed by the likes of NZ initiative.
The tyranny of distance has ensured the much touted shift to a value add/hi tech economy shift, has not eventuated. We largely remain a cows and campervan economy. Productivity is stagnant and the high quality people our immigration policy is supposedly aimed at attracting, are not coming here. The majority of our new citizens are highly aspirational but generally without the top end skills we must have if our transition to a high value economy is to occur.
Not a message your local MP would want to hear.
To be honest we could do with more immigrants. I am very happy with the many smiley faces I see everyday on Queen St at lunch time - it's just like a real United Nation. I am very proud of Auckland because our city is working towards diversity and we respect and celebrate different cultures - every organisation needs this, Auckland need this, and our country need this because it is good for our country! So very excited to see the reported 71,305 migrants in the last 12 months - it makes me very very happy!! Onwards and upwards. Our government has done a great job #VoteForNational
Do those smiley happy faces include the increasing numbers of beggars? Or do those rose-tinted glasses filter them out?
You actually used to make the odd reasonable, and occasionally valid argument but these days you just seem to have retreated to trolling for the sake of it.
Phil Twyford put this post up on Facebook
"Graham Adams on how immigration is putting massive stress on Auckland's infrastructure while the Government seems remarkably unconcerned." with a link to this article http://www.noted.co.nz/money/economy/keeping-up-with-the-new-jafas/
Here is the Facebook link
https://www.facebook.com/phil.twyford.mp/posts/1337207366335775
What is your company/field of work like in regards to hiring graduates/young Kiwis and offering apprenticeships or internships? Do you hire them, or only look at CVs with 3/4+ years experience? Not having a go at you or anything, but I've found that NZ employers are rubbish at this. I've been job hunting for 6 months (IT) and only found 3 "entry level positions" (2 of which required 3 years of experience).
The companies I'm involved with employ quite a few young Kiwis at entry level. It's not exactly the most inspiring work and recent immigrants can have attitudinal advantages over some kids born here. But I think we we have a social obligation to our own first, over work visa foreigners. Too many employers, in my view, take the easier option and give preference to more malleable applicants.
I may be interpreting the data incorrectly but when I look at the data interest.co.nz shows in their data section it appears that since 2013 there has been a decrease in the number of New Zealanders leaving the country by 40,000 anually on a net basis to where it is now basically zero on a net basis. That's a big chunk out of 70,000 people annually. Is part of the migration issue potentially being exasperated by the fact that after all of the years of Kiwis headed overseas for work (myself included) that we are finally coming home to roost or choosing to not leave anymore? This in turn with robust organic growth in actual foreign immigration is driving up the numbers and hence pressure on housing/infrastructure etc? I would love to see some more numbers because you can try and curb international migrants but you can't stop Kiwis from coming home. NZ has always been an open place for immigrants and it is part of our culture. It would be sad to see that lost because the problem was misinterpreted.
Look it's an emotive subject but I'm not sure what the number is or how you would do it. A lot of returning Kiwis return with foreign spouses and have NZ kids. Can't exactly turn them away. Most of the two year 'tourist work visa' folks are just pouring beer in Queenstown they're probably not your problem buying up houses etc. - they're gone on 2 years. So then you get to the 'permanent migrants' and most of them are deemed 'skilled' to fill labor shortages just like when Kiwis were leaving in droves we had to fill engineers, nurses etc. Maybe that needs revisited. I'm not saying their isn't room for optimization but it's not likely as simple as people make it out to be.
Paradoxx there is a table in this article of immigration numbers for NZ citizens and non-citizens per year.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/02/nz-labour-throws-gauntlet-housi…
In 2011 immigration for NZ citizens was a loss of about 36,000 kiwis and for non-NZ citizens it was 35,000 arriving. So population growth from immigration in 2011 was a net loss of nearly 2,000 people.
Since 2012 NZ has each year had less kiwis leaving and more non-NZ citizens arriving.
By 2016 the figures were about 2,000 kiwis leaving and 72,000 non-NZ citizens arriving.
If we went back to the 2011 level of non-NZ citizen immigration rate that would make a massive difference.
I can't see the kiwi leaving rate increasing drastically in the short to medium term. Global opportunities look in short supply. China's resource importing boom is over -so Aussie's mining boom is over. The UK has Brexit turmoil. The euro-zone is hobbling along. US has Trump.
We need to adjust our immigration settings to respect this changing global environment. I would suggest adjusting non-NZ citizen immigration down to 2011 levels.
The highly skilled might read all the rubbish written on this site and decide to emigrate to Syria where they may feel more welcome.
Just stop complaining, If Auckland is as bad as you lot make it out to be move somewhere else.
Kerikeri is a boom town already with Auckland homeowners moving up here in droves to enjoy the lifestyle.
Come up here and start a online business or something, you seem to have loads of time on your hands to write the crap on here, use your time more wisely and think of your future, not somebody else's .
Again, disingenuous.
Only a certain proportion of people at any given time in any society have the interest, inclination and/or ability to work in and succeed in high income generating businesses.
You are effectively saying screw teachers, health workers, administrators and even many moderate-high income earning engineers etc., people who really make a difference in our society rather than property speculators. Passionate and hard working people in these fields, no matter how committed, have very little chance of buying a house in Auckland now.
Fine if you want us to become a serfdom with increasing desperation and crime.
But that's not my idea of what I want NZ to be. Nor, I suspect, those of this country's historic leaders, whether of the left or right.
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