New Zealand's net population gain from migration was just 4711 in the 12 months to the end of June, down from a whopping 84,845 in the 12 months to June 2020, according to Statistics NZ.
The latest annual boost to population from migration was the lowest for a June year since 2013, when there was a net gain of just 809.
In the month of June this year there was a net gain of 897, up from 387 in June last year, but well down from the net gain of 3008 in June 2019.
The latest figures show that 40,548 people left NZ long-term in the year to June, while 45,258 arrived long-term, giving a net gain of 4711.
"Monthly migration since April 2020 has been low, due to the the introduction of COVID-19 border and travel restrictions," Statistics NZ population indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.
In the year to June, 27,667 NZ citizens arrived home long-term, while another 12,114 departed long-term, giving a net gain of 15,552 NZ citizens for the year. That's slightly down from the net gain of 17,138 NZ citizens in the 12 months to June 2020.
There has been a substantial downturn in the number of NZ citizens coming home long-term, with their numbers in the year to June 2021 down by 36% compared to the previous 12 months.
The number of non-NZ citizens citizens coming to this country long-term is down even more dramatically, with just 17,592 arriving in the year to June, down by 85% from the 116,623 arriving in the year to June 2020.
However the number of non-NZ citizens leaving exceeds the number arriving, with 28,433 departing long-term in the year to June, giving a net loss of 10,842 non-NZ citizens.
The interactive chart below shows the long term net migration trends on both a monthly and annual basis.
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Net long term migration
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115 Comments
So I am guessing the reason for continued house price rise is nothing but GREED.
- Government being greedy for immigrant votes
- Politicians being greedy for overseas donations
- Ma and Pa investors greedy about wanting more $ for retirement at any social cost
- real estate agents being greedy for commission
- Flippers wanting to flip property for a big payout for doing no work
- landlord wanting to horde properties at any cost hoping for any high price rises
Human greed it seems has no limits.
Largely the last 12 months of house price inflation was due to rates falling to historic lows and RBNZ loosening lending restrictions.
But it would be foolish to look at the last 12 months of migration in a vacuum. Over the past 24 months we have had annual net migration of around 45k per year, which is historically very high and has overall exasperated the housing shortage. Given another 12 months of low net migration, and high construction levels, we may actually start to see the erosion of the shortage.
Greed is good.
Oh yes, it was all the rave just before the GFC of 2008. Pity that it ended so badly.
Greed is so bad that it even made it as one of the seven deadly sins. That is how long it has been acknowledged how vile it is
Fortunately sin isn’t real
Kind of depends what you call it, doesn't it?
I am an atheist, but I know that some of the stuff from back then still applies today, I just don't think it came from anywhere other than people.
"Human greed it seems has no limits".
Please don't tell me you've just worked this out.
I'm just here for my daily glass of whine
the issue with housing is not simply numbers - as we certainly built way more housing than required for 5000 people -- but the policies around housing which have led to increased compliance costs, the loss of landlords ability to reclaim their own homes -- and a 30% rise in house prices -- Why bother complying and renting to potentially difficult tenants when you can make 8-10 yrs rent in capital gains in the year ! lots more empty homes about and lots more scrutiny on who people rent to! All of which was predicted in the advice given to government before they made those changes and before they lent the back 10 billion interest free which was passed on to speculators -- nothing here should be a surprise
I guess it really depends on a) when people need to start locking in these "capital gains" and b) how many people start needing to lock it in. It's not an income until it's realized, and before you know it you're dead.
Which is exactly why the government needs to own 20 ish % of homes. Largely clean out landlording as the only road to better bbq stories.
But...
https://imgur.com/qG08rLa
love teh link -- thanks brightened up my day no end
Lol.
Instead of net migration change, we have to look at who came in ? Mostly Kiwis returning from overseas, for settling here, bringing their money and buying houses here. They pushed up the house prices by a major factor. Rest are investment property buyers and a small percentage of FHBs propelled by the low mortgage rates.
Those are some extraordinary claims. Do you have any evidence?
The article states that 45,258 people arrived long-term in the year to June, and that 27,667 of them were NZ citizens. So at least the statement "Mostly Kiwis returning from overseas" seems to be correct :-). It's reasonable to expect that a good percentage of these returnees want to buy a house but what we don't know is how many of them could afford it. I'm not aware of any reliable way to determine that.
Well, to be objective, we don’t have any data to claim that this group has pushed house prices. It can be 0, can be 27000
No CGT, no problems.
Immigration NZ has stopped putting out monthly updates on its study, work and residence visa decisions. The last update came out more than two months ago.
The lengths this lot running the country will go to in order to conceal their ineptitude and indecisiveness.
Good spot! Just submit an OIA request for that information. :-)
Further to that, in the monthly report this article reports on, Statistics NZ has put in some massive adjustments to reported immigration numbers from 13-16 months ago. It looks like rather than sticking to their standard 12/16 model for calculating immigration numbers, they've introduced some big adjustments. Arguably fair enough to adjust as some folk who stayed 13 or 14 months never intended to emigrate from their homelands, and were all-but trapped here by fear of the epidemic. Conveniently for their minister, this puts an outflow of 4467 people outside the widely reported 12 month rolling net immigration total, obfuscating the net outflow of people from New Zealand over the last six months.
The numbers coming into the country pre-covid are simply staggering – I simply cannot understand what the Govt and INZ were thinking.
I can only conclude they actually weren’t.
I view the inevitable opening of our borders with trepidation – the Govt have talked a good game of “reset” during the last year and a half – but I’m starting to sense a bit buckling entering the debate as show time approaches.
If they once again offer a major fail in this area – where do I send my vote next time around?
They were thinking: "Brining in more people gives a boost to nominal GDP, and makes us look like we are running a successful economy".
What they weren't thinking "What are the long term ramifications on our infrastructure, how do we pay for it, and does this improve the lives of the average New Zealander".
9 years of mass immigration and a denial we had a housing crisis - but people still worship the knight.
Now a govt who seem to have forgotten what they promised - but rescued somewhat by covid.
No wonder some people don't vote.
If migration were the only election issue, Covid will become the PM.
My humblest apologies, I’ve voted labour the last 3 elections. I won’t be voting ever again.
Remember that this was a government who came to office on a platform of, among other things, reduced immigration.
Look what happened to the graph around 2017.
So why didn't Immigration NZ reduce immigration? That's their job isn't it? You and I knew that the Government wanted to reduce immigration it was no secret, so why didn't Immigration NZ go ahead with it? Maybe they have bonus incentives in place for processed applications???
Don't get me wrong, I don't vote Labour so I'm not sticking for them but I also can't stand bureaucratic incompetence that gets glazed over for partisan reasons.
“so why didn't Immigration NZ go ahead with it?”
Perhaps the problem is that “it” was never clearly spelt out and enforced by those who wanted “it”.
I might be wrong – but in many cases there seems to have been very few numerical limits as to applications and approvals.
I can only assume the INZ processing machine just keeps going and going until it’s told to stop – which I assume would be by the appropriate minister or Govt of the day.
I don’t understand why there aren’t clear numerical limits imposed on the various classes of entry – and a population policy that ties it all together.
Wealthy political donors set the level of unskilled migration to keep factory wages down and food sales up.
No offence but it’s not the ministry of immigration’s job to reduce or increase immigration. Their function is to implement the policies set by the Gov. We should ask those guys.
The hypocrisy is astounding. Not only did Labour fail to keep their promise to reduce immigration, they actually did the complete opposite and let in even more people than the previous National Govt. 120,000 was the incoming migrant number under National , Labour blew that out to 150,000 migrants a year. And even now, they have approved more residency visas in the 2021 year than any other year since 2017.
Whether red or blue, they can't get enough of this ponzi.
Doctors are leaving because their visas aren't being extended. Health crisis incoming...
Scares me to think how much our public health system, already struggling to keep up, would falter if it loses a few dozen experienced medical staff. Add to that, the plan to add demand by resuming low-skilled migration in a few months' time.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/126048349/burnt-out-doctors-and…
Does that mean we get all our NZ doctors back from overseas also?
a lot leave because they can not get a placement here or move up and gain experience, there is a bias in the system to import doctors from the UK.
Maybe it's time to make training to be a doctor more accessible? There's been far too much exclusivisation of the healthcare trades by the incumbents.
Nothing new. Happening world over where only citizens and residents are allowed to return. Also in this uncertain times not many keen to travel.
Please add number of Kiwis returning, to offset new immigrants - look at full picture.
Not to forget that in NZ, International student was a pathway to residency which has been stopped completely and also now with crackdown on immgratnt exploitation, many are not able to get job as most small businesses only use to survive by paying much less than minimmum wage and cannot afford to pay minumum wage of $20 + Which appox translates into $23. Also many small to medium business have either shut down or shutting down their businesses or in hibernation and switiching to the only business promoted by Jacinda and Orr - housing either build or buy and sell (Flip) without hassel of employees, regulations, compliance....definitely pay tax when flipping a house but so does one pay tax in business which are high risk.
Give some time, a time will come when only business will e buying and selling house to each other - characteristic of a ponzi.
John key denied and voted Jacinda , who took this ponzi along with Orr to a different level and who too now is in a denial mode as believes that housing crisis is a good crisis.
The data already includes returning Kiwis, assuming they'd been living overseas.
Employing immigrants on an essential skills work visa requires they be paid at minimum $25.50 per hour.
I employ 2 of them, latest one employed only about 6 weeks ago, very difficult to get staff currently and this is for basic warehousing & van driving positions.
Immigration is good. Immigrants are hardworking respectful and often entrepreneurial.
I’d have immigrant neighbours or tenants over entitled whinging kiwis any day.
Yes, yes I agree. But we have to be allowed to build houses for them to live.
Oh, yes yes. Every time someone builds a house that's grabbed by immigrants they end up in jail.
You are missing the problem. I agree that the overwhelming majority of people who i've met who have immigrated to NZ are great people.
The problem is the rate of immigration and that lack of planning done to provide the infrastructure and housing needed to support an expanding population.
Would you say immigration is good if we continued to provide no additional infrastructure but had net inflows of 500k a year? What about 1 million per year?
Its not a case of immigration being good or bad, its about it being done in a way that it works within the bounds of our infrastructure and ability to support a growing population.
1 million? Great! Just think of the increase in GDP! Because that's the only measure that matters isn't it? Isn't it?
If NZ businesses and corporates had any nation building consciousness they would have encouraged local Kiwi youngsters by appointing and training them and giving them decent wages.
Add to that the Student visas scam which allowed selected third rate education providers to flourish, living off poor students from overseas, who had no interest in studying but getting a work visa and residency in course of time. Till then they became fodder for the low paying businesses, exposed to exploitation and also indulging in unwanted activitiis. I learn that some even managed to marry other migrant spouses (who had already secured citizenship) to ensure their stay here.
Both the Governments and the Business community have to share the blame for runaway migration providing cheap (even illegal, low wage) labour to businesses which kept them in the money for the last 10 or so years. Imagine what might have happened if Covid had not put a break to that ongoing rort.
NZ society was the victim with local youngsters denied decent chances to live with dignity, honour and a good chance to become working citizens, contributing to the society.
The blame lies only on the Governments and the Business/Corporate community. Witness the skilled migrants flourishing in many ordinary jobs and becoming home owners with decent wages. That opportunity was not given to the local youngsters. The migration boom, resulted in unqualified migrants becoming permanent fixtures here, being exploited and joining a growing underclass.
Hopefully, INZ will develop the skills to identify what exactly are 'skilled migrants' and reset the policy to allow in the future only those type of people who are needed here to lift the society as a whole, instead of only a favoured business class. The Government has to be vigilant not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The opportunity given by Covid (sadly Nature had to intervene in NZ) should not be lost.
Nothing wrong with immigration if its done within the framework of zero population growth.
A net 85k came in the year before and we wonder why there is a housing crisis.
That’s because it’s illegal to build stuff, not the immigrants.
Delusional. I guess we can always go up, once every square centimetre is under concrete?
Settle down. Less than one percent of NZ is built up. We have half the population density of U.S.
Go for a drive sometime. It’s all putrid dairy farms.
Sprawl is such an attractive alternative option? I guess to some it's important to cover everything in wall to wall humanity. I imagine they never ask themselves why?
Beats the wall to wall toxic dump farms we have to live with. In any case, we only need to replace a small fraction of them with houses to get our population to an optimal 10mil.
And who, pray, is generating the export income to support the economy? Financial money go rounds? Or farms that harness sunlight, air, water and soil to produce saleable product. Of course there is an environmental footprint to that. But think a month nute, what is your environmental footprint and what export income do you generate?
No PDK, not "putrid" dairy farms, and their produce funds, in large measure, your car and its petrol so you can enjoy a purposeless but pleasant drive in our green countryside.
I sympathize with your views on growth, but nasty comments don't help anyone.
It was PUK not PDK.
.
NZ installed electricity generating capacity from all sources 9448 MW. Average household uses 1.79 mwh per quarter. Assuming those 84448 extra people live 4 to a household. They are consuming 420 mwh per day.
4% of the total available supply. Make the connection. We like to blame external factors like weather for our shortages of water and power. But the truth is we want the GDP benefits for increased population without spending on the infrastructure that is required to support this.
You could say that about almost any resource. More immigration means less per person within New Zealand.
That's what makes me laugh about these targets to reduce carbon emissions to pre-1990 levels. In 1990 this country only had 3.3m people.
@squishy it’s entirely doable for NZ to get to 1990 level of carbon emissions in our energy sector, and we are making good progress on that front as the switch to renewals continues for both electricity generation and from the transportation switch-over to zero emission solutions. The far bigger challenge is our carbon emissions from agriculture/livestock - which is not at all based on our population but rather the huge amount of product exported by those sectors, and where much more R&D is required to reduce emissions (without massively culling our livestock numbers)
And yet the IPCC report released the other day recommends the impact of methane emissions should be calculated using the GWP* metric as opposed to GWP100. That would change NZ's emissions profile substantially.
>In summary, new emission metric approaches such as GWP* and CGTP are designed to relate emission changes in short-lived greenhouse gases to emissions of CO2 as they better account for the different physical behaviours of short and long-lived gases. Through scaling the corresponding cumulative CO2 equivalent emissions by the TCRE, the GSAT response from emissions over time of an aggregated set of gases can be estimated. Using either these new approaches, or treating short and long-lived GHG emission pathways
separately, can improve the quantification of the contribution of emissions to global warming within a cumulative emission framework, compared to approaches that aggregate emissions of GHGs using standard CO2 equivalent emission metrics.
Bollocks
NZ total annual energy demand actually peaked more than a decade ago, so despite a decade of high immigration the total amount of electricity used in a year has actually fallen over that time. What the issue in 2021 is is that generators have not created enough peak time power buffer (could have easily done this with large battery farm like was done in Australia), and still struggling to secure base load capacity in dry years.
A remarkable result, really. Even just looking at residential electricity usage we've been flat through the recent period of high population growth. All those energy efficient appliances, light bulbs and insulation really make a difference.
Except they haven't actually resulted in a (significant) reduction in electricity use because of this population growth. Efficiencies have hard limits too, what then?
I know, I didn't claim electricity use had reduced, but efficiencies keeping pace with manic population growth is quite impressive I think. Would be even better if immigration wasn't quite so frenetic.
I don't have numbers for you, but I suspect we're a long way from running out of efficiencies. I'm basing this on the standard of housing I've experienced in Chch and the current opposition to even bringing our insulation standards up to the level of international peers. Put 30cm of insulation in every roof, install double glazing and wall insulation and we'd take another huge chunk out of domestic electricity use. Next up, solar hot water systems to massively reduce electricity used for cylinders.
I don't disagree although lighting is nearing it's theoretical limit with LEDs. Heating is the same with heat pumps. The other suggestions are great ideas but will ultimately be insufficient in the long-term if we continue to increase population at our recent rate.
Agreed, we're in a good state with heating - the UK is just getting to grips with replacing millions of gas boilers and explaining to people what a heat pump actually is. LEDs are great but not sure what the current uptake is - I bought my house in 2019 which had very few LEDs installed (almost all upgraded now).
It'd all be much easier with a stable population - at the moment we are running faster just to stand still.
Before we bought our newly built townhouse two years ago we were paying $500 per month in winter in our old cold rental. Now paying $200 per month.
I am such an advocate for buildings 'getting it right' in terms of energy.
Yes but that was because we where able to move energy intensive processes, like manufacturing, offshore as we moved further towards a service based economy over time. If you strip out industrial usage per capita personal energy consumption has actually increased.
Exactly. 2010 was peak industrial use. We generated 43.5 gwh for the year and 75% was from renewables. Population then was 4.3 m. Since then the industrial use has steadily declined while we added another 0.5 m people. In 2020 we generated 43 gwh but for 4.8m people and renewables % went up to 81%. It was 81% in 1990 as well when population was 3.3 m. We got out of the making stuff business and into the people farming business.
I have to say, I'm skeptical about your numbers. You're only accounting for residential electricity usage, and have come up with an extra ~1.7% of the population needing a 4% increase in our total electricity generation. Not sure what the error is but it doesn't smell right - possibly some units confusion.
More generally though, I agree adding more people doesn't help our infrastructure issues.
Any guesses on population flows when borders reopen?
I'm thinking we might hit six figures once the borders are fully reopened as the numbers equilibrate.
lol, stop dreaming, come back to reality..
It swings a lot but if you plot a trendline there is a definite annual increase trend since the start of the 1980s. Unless the long term trajectory swings it's more a matter of when than if.
what the old and wealthy come in and the young and ambitious leave. A retirement village with no one to look after the.
Hopefully six figures leaving for Australia and our population begins dropping. To many people here already, the country is getting overrun.
Agreed, perfect country for about 3m people.
Agreed and a perfect world for about 3 billion people too.
Squishy. A nation with only 3 million people will have all kinds of other health problems. They will more or less know each other and start to look alike. Not good for the species.
you miss the fact that it will be our brightest and best that can afford to leave and secure good employment not our large unproductive criminal element and benefit bludgers - 100000 of them would be great - but its already our nurses doctors engineers and IT specialists that are going
This is bullshit pro-expat nonsense. Plenty of smart and driven people stay here for family and end up getting stuck. Meanwhile plenty of dropkicks make their way overseas, and some of them end up doing OK out of it. But no, we have to play up the poor ex-pat angle, and I think you'll find many of those 'best and brightest' are happy to disown NZ until they need it more than it needs them.
Yep it'll be open slather once it's deemed safe. A hundred thousand low skill immigrants? What could go wrong?
Great to see those low numbers.
I want to see policy post covid that gives us a zero growth population.
many of those leaving are the doctors , nurses engineers and other skilled migrants who have not been able to bring their family in due to covid and a lack of MIQ facilities and are now simply going home again - the Kiwis leaving are as ever the most highly skilled and educated -- its like a double brain drain -- meanwhile we want 8000 extra fruit pickers ..... the issue with migration is and always has been WHO and WHAT skills are they bringing -- we simply dont need a repeat of the 8000 chinese tour guides and 5000 chefs ( indian takeaways and burger flippers)
Is this one of the considerations for Amazon to leave NZ? Getting too hard to do business here, cost of living etc?
Its more a function of Brexit, now that the UK is going it alone they are competing vigorously to bring export services to the UK, to make up for the ones they lost from Brexit. And not being bound by EU tax rules any more, tax rebates and subsidies are on the table for any business looking to move to the UK. Similar to how Ireland rebuilt its economy by offering a 12% corporate tax rate and ability to use the country as a tax haven.
bigger subsidies and very costly to have to do two weeks MIQ -- if there were places that is -- and yes costly to live get the equipment locations etc
Why would these people stay when their salaries will not get them int a home comparative to their professions?
Something mr orr doesn see to 'get'.
Shut the borders to a trickle and unemployment looks to be below 4% very soon. And contract rates in my industry have shot up over the past year.
Keep immigration low? "Let's do this"
Someone further up said "Immigrants are hardworking respectful and often entrepreneurial". In my experience some of them are, some of them aren't. Just like Kiwis.
Unemployment will increase if that happens. Immigration creates jobs.
It also creates costs and you know what they say. No jobs on a dead planet.
What costs? Even if you do subscribe to that sort of trash Malthusian ideology, your argument makes no sense. It just means moving deck chairs on the titanic; they still have to live somewhere on earth.
The statistics have already proven you wrong.
F+@$, this place is even more miserable than when I left and it wasn't exactly upbeat then.
I'm leaving, all the smart people are leaving, I'm off to Oz, why would anyone come here, get out while you can ad nauseum.
There is very little happening in NZ that isn't happening in comparable nations except you have been able to attend sport, gather in large groups, go to concerts, not wear masks. Do you have any idea how much better off the average Kiwi has been?
Why do you think so many people feel such sentiment about New Zealand? You seem to dismiss the problem as just "miserable people"?
Very few people I know complain like the few hundred regulars here. Quite a few have worked abroad and realise how good they have it here. Yes, house prices went up a lot, but they have gone up everywhere - a lot.
Given we are in housing deficit. Where are these 5000 people sleeping each night, or who did they turf out of their bed?
There are 1500 properties being completed in Auckland each month at the moment, probably around 4000 across the country, the annual 5,000 can be easily housed by new properties with just one month of new builds.
New migrant number down but what about thousand and thousand of Kiwis who returned from overseas to settle in NZ as this was and is one of the main reason cited of rising house prices and not investors.
So returning Kiwis should have compensated.
That was the narrative, at least. There’s no evidence of it
I had heard this has been debunked. Do they even have stats on this. The elephant in the room is all the empty ghost houses and those used for temporary weekenders etc, but that has been denied without there being any stats
Poor health services
Poor schooling
Poor law enforcement
Disaster local councils
Disaster central government
Little wonder more new Zealanders are heading off to Oz
All require taxation to pay for them, and if you want more of them, then you have to be prepared to pay for it.
I like reading the comments on interest.co.nz. Overall, you get more insight and analysis from these than you ever get in our mainstream media who are determined to keep 'middle New Zealand' from thinking too much in case they will stop voting Labour.
Largely agree, although the same could be said of National. Personally thought the quality of media performance under Key was shocking Perhaps it's a media thing, rather than partisanship? Mainstream media just suck. It is their job to sell advertising slots and get bums on seats, rather than offend the purchasers of whatever they're hawking with unpleasant truths. Worried people don't buy, except maybe alcohol and firearms?
Fortunately, sin isn’t real.
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