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Net migration gain sets new record for sixteenth month in a row

Property
Net migration gain sets new record for sixteenth month in a row

Surging migration flows continue to break all previous records with net migration increasing more than threefold over the last two years.

The latest figures from Statistics NZ show there was a record net migration gain of 63,659 people in the year to November compared with a net gain of just 48,836 in the year to November 2014 and just 19,478 in the year to November 2013.

That was due to 120,891 people coming to this country on a permanent and long term basis in the year to November, and 57,232 people leaving New Zealand on a permanent and long term basis in the same period.

Of the 120,891 people who arrived on a long term basis, 35,604 were NZ or Australian citizens, 37,186 arrived on work visas, 27,798 were on student visas and 13,898 were on residency visas.

The biggest source country for migrants was India with a net gain of 13,268 people from that country in the year to November, followed by China 8759, the Philippines 5039 and the UK 3680.

There was a net gain of 371 people from Australia, compared to a net loss of 4542 people to Australia in the year to November 2014.

There was a net loss of 4998 New Zealand citizens from this country in the year to November and a net gain of 68,657 citizens of other countries.

Statistics NZ said November was the sixteenth consecutive month that there had been a  record net gain of migrants into this country.

In a First Impressions newsletter on the migration numbers, Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said the low numbers of people leaving the country and the strength in arrival numbers would cause the country's population growth rate to hit its highest level since 1974.

"High population growth is helping to maintain a semblance of strong GDP growth, but at the same time the preponderance of people in the labour market is keeping wage growth lower than it would otherwise be," he said.

However Australia had started reporting strong jobs growth and lower unemployment than New Zealand.

"If this trend continues, New Zealand will eventually become a less attractive destination," he said. 

Net long term migration

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38 Comments

Good news. Economy will grow by 3%.

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I liked it better when NZ had 3 million people and no unemployment.

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And the housing market levitation will continue for a little longer.

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By what/whose authority does the Immigration Department set policy, growth targets and selection criteria? Does the NZ voter have any influence or say in the settings?
How many immigration applications were received in the last 12 months? And what percentage were approved?
What is the overall immigration strategy for our society and economy. - is it simply 'pour them in and get a crude kind of "growth"'?
Where are the longitudinal studies showing the 'skilled' immigrant actually engaged in high skills jobs and businesses?
What impact on the academic and real world quality of NZ Qualifications is the high number of international students being pushed through, mainly because the NZ government is underfunding the universities and polytechnics? On a Balanced Scorecard - is it actually worth it?
Where are the international student graduates 5 years after graduation? Working at what level?
Perhaps these could become election issues. Difficult to raise though without accusations of xenophobia.

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By what/whose authority does the Immigration Department set policy, growth targets and selection criteria? Does the NZ voter have any influence or say in the settings?

I have no time for democracy which I regard as a mechanism designed to simulate choice while facilitating compliance.

Perhaps an answer is to be found in the words of Aldous Huxley in Brave New World: “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” Read more

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I'm a immigrant to this country and have been for nine years.I've got my own business and employ staff when i need it.You can't allways look at the negatives as there are a lot of positives allso.My street has english,Welsh ,Aussie's and South Africans in it.Everyone is working hard and paying taxes and in my mind doing a great job of contributing to this country.

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Well fine but when does a lot become too many? When does the rort that is free entry for work dressed up as mickey mouse education courses become recognized for what it is? When does the balance of family visa entry scam stop so that people who have never paid taxes can't retire here gracefully looking after their grandchildren while the in betweeners return to the homeland after setting up bolt holes. When do the crowded roads, hospitals, schools, prisons start to empty a bit?

The answer is when the housing Ponzi crashes. Immigrants building houses for immigrants building houses for immig........ Nationals economic policy in a nutshell - such short term thinking but hey GDP is up.

Immigrants talking " Kiwis so dumb lah"

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Re balance of family scam. The reality from what I have witnessed is that it is not as easy to bring family here as is often reported.

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Spend a day at the North Shore hospital then. They don't need more nurses - they need more interpreters for all the old folk.

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i think the point was how do we measure the gains against the downsides to see what level of immigration is most optimal for NZ and its growth and then who is making these decision as what levers are adjusted to get or keep us at that level

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Exactly Sharetrader - not a denouncement of all immigration.

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How do we measure the gains?

The data was published in the last 2 weeks

GDP has gone up slightly
GDP per head of population has gone down

Which means
(a) the absolute addition to GDP is only marginal, growing at a lesser rate than previous gains, in spite of record numbers of migrants
and
(b) GDP per head of population is going down - there are no gains,
because
(c) dis-economies of scale are setting in where each additional migrant is detracting from and disrupting the GDP per head of the existing population, resulting in decreased GDP per head of the whole

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a real life example

we had a small business that employed young ladies in IT data entry
Started off with 2 girls who each produced x output
Then added 2 more who were capable of producing x output each
The environtment of the 4 was conducive, output went up to 6x, better than expected
While business boomed we kept adding staff
And total output both absolute and per person kept rising
Until we added the eleventh and twelth person
Suddenly output dropped back to what we were achieving with 9 staff
Didn't matter what we did
The additional 10th, 11th, and 12th employee didn't add to output, but detracted from it

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Is this Brooks Law in action?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law

"According to Brooks, there is an incremental person who, when added to a project, makes it take more, not less time."

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The best real life example I've seen of fixing such a problem, was a large processing team split in two. They weren't told why it was being done. They still operated side by side, just team a and team b. Just through a team competitive nature, productivity went back up again. Simple fix in that case.

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did not work for us, one team became weak and new workload was put onto the stronger team who became overloaded. we ended up reverting back as one team so we could spread the workload, and give the stronger team members more time to help the weaker ones

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The ideal scrum team is about 8, hence i'm not surprised at your drop off, Its related to Brooks (The mythical man month - compulsory reading IMO), The strategy to scale up is to break into functioning units

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yeah but there are a lot that come with more money that we have and push everything out of reach!

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First off like the US we should have a policy legislated by the Parliament with specific numbers.
Then the spouse work visa for students should be scrapped.
Students should get longer work permits after finishing studying, say 5 years work visa only.
Residency only like the US green card rules...Citizenship only for employed people, not for those on any kind of dole/benefit.
Parents migration to be strictly curtailed, only for exceptionally deserving cases, with age criteria in place.
Thanks.

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Disgusting mismanagement.

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"Road to Nowhere" by Talking Heads c1980 something is a fair summation of where we are.

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Is it really a problem to make this country 5 million people? Is it a problem To create competitive business atmosphere? Is it a problem to make people competent by immigration? Is it a problem to make this economy from 5 billion to $180 billion by foreign investment? Is it a problem to create jobs by educational universities through foreign students? Is it a problem to take $20 k fees from foreign students? Is it a problem to migrate foreign people on general skill category and let them pay tax? Is it a problem to make kiwis rich by selling their houses for millions of dollars? Is it a problem to create wealthy landlords by making migrants tenants? Are we (including me) opportunist?

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Is it really a problem to make this country 5 million people?
yes if the infrastructure is not in place to handle the people, roads, schools,hospitals, law and order
Is it a problem to create jobs by educational universities through foreign students? Is it a problem to take $20 k fees from foreign students
yes because that does not cover the whole cost of study at our universities so NZ citizens are subsidiaries to foreign students
Is it a problem to migrate foreign people on general skill category and let them pay tax?
is the amount of tax enough to cover the increased government spending needed again hospitals, schools, roads, law and order.
if it is why did we have to sell the power stations which funds are now spent so now we are borrowing

if mass immigration is good for the country and the governments coffers why are we still borrowing so much

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Yep.

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Too many too fast.. Q why do people leave overpopulated countries? A Because they are awful. Why fill NZ, we had a good thing going here. Its just bad economic management.

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don't we all wish this stuff was discussed more in media, rather than the soap opera stuff.

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Don't worry guys, make money. Reap off the migrants and tourists!! Merry Christmas to everyone.

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It is a win-win for migrants and businesses, for sure. Rest are losers.

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Rickshaws in London - hilarious.

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The New-Age Land-Wars......mass invasion aided and abetted by Nanny State.

The development of slums in and around Auckland City during the period 2015 to 2030 slowly spread to the rest of New Zealand.......The city of Sails was replaced by hessian sacks and corrugated iron over cardboard roof structures.....people stood miserable looking out from their earthen hut floors at the dreary cold wet day.......children sat on cardboard sodden from the relentless down-pours, their parents had long ago abandoned wiping their green snot laiden noses.......the authorities would come and destroy their huts leaving them shivering further.......what money the poor did earn was taken by other authorities to pay their own wages........they then used these earnings to buy more houses and land.......the poor scoured the building sites looking for dry cardboard and any other materials, scavenging in skips for tidbits of discarded food.........the harbour bobbled with debris and the smell of human waste was thick in the air.......dead bloated fish added to the mix........it is hard to imagine that a gun was not fired.....a land war with no artillery, no soldiers, no battle other than the pen!!!!

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Meanwhile in other news criminal lawyers are still looking for John Keys with rumours that he has gone into a witness protection program as protection against Chinese gangs. Ex PM Collins states from Beijing where she is now "Vice" President of Bank of China that " she always knew he was a bad egg". Key who was instrumental in destroying the very fabric of NZ society and is now embroiled in a wide ranging group civil case received unexpected support from Nick Leeson who said " Wide Boy Johnny taught me all I know and I can still remember the good times we had in Bugis St pulling the boys pony tails"

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JK is the best PM in history of NZ. He is the one who took NZ after 2008 great depression. He is the one who made budget Surplus. He is the one who made NZ economy to grow by more than 3% in decades. He is the one who made this country no 2 rich in the world out of 200 countries.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/287940/nz-second-richest-country…

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gees can I have what you are smoking, next you will be saying santa is real and the easter bunny lays chocolate eggs LOL

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Is that a Christmas Cracker joke ?

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NZ is in a better position from the Christchurch earthquakes and Aucklands housing shortage.....JK cannot take credit for masterminding either of those events!!!

JK is the preferred PM due to the fact that all opposition parties are no opposition at all!!

If JK wants to keep up the high numbers for immigration he needs to remove all impediments to building more houses right now.......you can't keep pushing more stock into a pen or paddock with the same amount of shelter or feed that existed before you pushed more inside!!!

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I hate to say it, but our BFF and JK's true mates may just be a little over rated PMI wise, when it comes to buying up large, next year, if this below, rings true.

Not that I want to put a dampener on your Yule Tide Festivities, skiting how much more your next door neighbours house fetched earlier this year.

So do not spend up too large on Prezzies, just yet...There is probably a very good reason why he coughed up a load of dough and maybe getting out of the smog ridden, environment, looking for a place to call home, before his net worth plummets.

Some real estate is worth lots, some is just a lot of No2. Depends on the next purchasers ability to pay.

Octoberfest is one thing, New Year, may be another.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-21/china-suspends-another-unoffic…

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Why are we letting people in when most come to Auckland and we have this housing problem?. Reduce the numbers.. How can we increase the house numbers ? Make those people who have vacate renters rent them out..... Last I heard there was 18000 vacate properties in Auckland.. What does it take for this Govt to see there is a major problem here... and I voted national. Those that do buy the over priced renters get the rent paid by the Govt and who gives the money to the Govt. .. Why cant this Govt see this??? The composition of the people coming hear is such that most speak broken English and I find it hard to communicate .Not their fault . I am always having to ask people to repeat themselves . Not good for them or me.The standard should be higher. I regard myself as a culturalist. .If I want to experience another culture I will become an overseas tourist. I don't want to be an overseas tourist in my own country.

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