Overseas worker numbers down by 36,840 since March 2020

Overseas workers in New Zealand down 17% from peak, with overseas student numbers down 40%

21st Jun 21, 10:59am by Greg Ninness

The number of people in New Zealand on work and student visas continues to slowly but steadily decline.

According to figures compiled by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), 184,416 people were in NZ on work visas at the end of May. At the same time there were 51,891 overseas students.

Both numbers have declined significantly since severe border restrictions were introduced last year as part of the Government's COVID-19 pandemic response.

The MBIE figures show the number of people on work visas peaked at 221,256 in March 2020, declining by 36,840 since, a drop of 16.7%.

The same figures show overseas student numbers peaked at 86,064 in October 2019 and have since declined by 34,173. That's a drop of 39.7%.

That's a combined reduction of 71,013 fewer people from overseas working or studying in NZ.

However as the graph below shows, it has been a gradual decline rather than a sudden slump.

The reductions have taken the number of work visa holders in NZ back to where they were in October 2018. Student visa numbers are at their lowest level in any month outside of the Christmas/New Year period since MBIE began collating the figures in their current format in 2008.

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39 Comments

by rastus1 | 21st Jun 21, 11:05am 1624230354

Good.

by youngdumbandbroke | 21st Jun 21, 11:55am 1624233315

On the radio this morning Magic hosts and company were arguing that low wage migrants were good for the economy as wage suppression stops inflationary pressure lol. What a country we live in right?

by Hamish | 21st Jun 21, 12:01pm 1624233682

Ummm, so lets start letting in some radio hosts that will do their job for minimum wage and see what they think.

by house hunter | 21st Jun 21, 2:01pm 1624240892

There is, after all, a shortage of such radio hosts.

by youngdumbandbroke | 21st Jun 21, 9:17pm 1624267069

They don’t even deserve minimum wage IMO as they provide zero value

by Lapun | 21st Jun 21, 12:31pm 1624235506

That's clear rational thinking. And it leads to the conclusion that the reintroduction of slavery is fine because it would stop inflationary pressure.

The underlying idea is some jobs are so crappy that we will reserve them for desperate foreigners.

by gnx | 21st Jun 21, 7:54pm 1624262074

Magic is a New Zealand classic hits and talkback radio network owned by MediaWorks New Zealand. The network targets New Zealand's growing population of baby boomers with a line-up of veteran broadcasters

by delboy | 22nd Jun 21, 7:43am 1624304584

Yes there is inflationary pressures but so what. Wages have been suppressed for years now because of cheap labour from overseas.

by Squishy | 21st Jun 21, 12:08pm 1624234109

Sadly border closure is only delaying the equilibration upon reopening. ImmigrationNZ are still approving applications.

by custard | 21st Jun 21, 11:32am 1624231954

“The MBIE figures show the number of people on work visas peaked at 221,256 in March 2020, declining by 36,840 since, a drop of 16.7%.”

Would be interesting to know how many of those 221,256 transitioned onto residency visas during the period – assuming that’s how the process works.

by northman46 | 21st Jun 21, 11:59am 1624233569

And it would be interesting to see the numbers of residents transitioning into citizenship. As in 2019 there were 44,413 new citizens by grant, but 31,870 in 2020. I wonder if the downward trend has continued. Processing times have sky rocketed (from 4 months to up to 14 months), so it would imply more are applying.

by realterms | 21st Jun 21, 12:09pm 1624234145

I bet there's a big surge in citizenship applications. The driver will be the wedge that was driven between permanent residence rights and citizenship rights when the government slammed the door on PRs but not citizens. It used to be that the two were almost equivalent (except for rights to move to oz). But in the new regime, people who were previously eligible for citizenship but didn't see the need... many will now see the need.

by kpnuts | 21st Jun 21, 12:21pm 1624234875

having been a PR for 15 years now i am one of those that is in process of gaining citizenship - and know of several more people in my situation doing the same -
thats despite never having left these shores since i arrived and dam sure i wont be doing it anytime in the next few years!

by Lapun | 21st Jun 21, 12:35pm 1624235733

Wise move. BTW when you become a citizen you have the opportunity to deal with the only govt body that is not only top class but is also a pleasure to deal with: the NZ passport office. Think of INZ and then contemplate the exact opposite.

by kpnuts | 21st Jun 21, 12:21pm 1624234875

by Cheetahlegs66 | 21st Jun 21, 1:58pm 1624240689

I took out citizenship in 2017 for 2 reasons: The first was getting sick of the constant scanning of baggage at Auck Int Airport (I travel 4-6x/yr). The change in processing since I used a NZ pass port from my UK equivalent is outstanding. The 2nd reason was NZ Super. As a taxpayer for 30+yrs, I'd be dam annoyed if superannuation was declined to permanent residents.

by Squishy | 21st Jun 21, 12:14pm 1624234447

"The MBIE figures show the number of people on work visas peaked at 221,256 in March 2020, declining by 36,840 since, a drop of 16.7%."

How is it possibly so low? Most visas are for between 12 and 24 months so I'd have expected at least half of those people to return to their country of origin.

by swingtrader | 21st Jun 21, 1:03pm 1624237421

The fundamental problem with immigration that I have witnessed first hand is the flawed path that starts as an English language student and ends as a citizen with zero need to secure a skill shortage role that a local could easily do. I know of immigrants that complete a Marketing degree then work serving in a fish shop because they can’t secure anything in their area of study and somehow still manage to get residency....then the elderly parents get residency and pension and somehow this person still adds up to a net fiscal positive for the country ???

by Brock Landers | 21st Jun 21, 1:15pm 1624238144

If you say anything against this you will be labelled a racialist.

by realterms | 21st Jun 21, 2:39pm 1624243188

It would be nice if the figures made clear how much of this sort of conversion is actually going on. The problem is that the xenophobic line is to assert that it is pervasive, and it's very difficult to tell from the stats one way or the other.

by Lapun | 21st Jun 21, 5:42pm 1624254166

Some immigrants work hard and use exceptional skills and are rewarded by generous salaries. The good immigrant who is beneficial to NZ.

Some immigrants may work hard but do so at low paid work and displace work opportunities for low skilled Kiwis. The immigrants who hamper NZ, are involved in worker exploitation and associated business rorts that reward the dishonest business.

That is fairly obvious and of course many like myself are somewhere in the middle. It would easily be proved if immigration visas were matched with IRD tax returns then we would know what is really happening. Several years ago I wrote and asked an immigration minister why they didn't do this and was told it was against the privacy laws. (My reason for writing a letter was in reference to two immigrants being jailed for drug smuggling - they had been resident for 9 years and never made a tax return.) Surely it is an obvious check for both INZ and the police and IRD but I guess NZ govt does not want any failures identified.

by EdwardD | 21st Jun 21, 8:38pm 1624264702

I won't be disagreeing as I have seen this for myself. Parental visas need to be a thing of the past.

by Taxbreak | 21st Jun 21, 2:15pm 1624241756

This problem seems to have been amplified around 2012/13 when the then National government allowed international students to work while studying in NZ, and the period 2012ish to 2017 when new residents with minimal earnings were able to import their parents (and sometimes siblings) into NZ.

Prior to NZ opening up again, perhaps the right for international students to work should be removed. This would assist in identifying genuine (paying) students and weed out many of those coming primarily for residency.

by Lapun | 21st Jun 21, 2:31pm 1624242681

INZ is crazy. They fall over themselves to effectively subsidize foreign owned training establishments taking in foreign students to study dumb subjects at a pathetically low level. Meanwhile the 15 years old Vietnamese girl who has already completed a degree in pure maths at AUT is rejected because she is too young to study for her PhD. I'm a strong believer in cutting immigration however for that girl they should be laying out the red carpet. I'd sweep it myself.

by Passerby | 21st Jun 21, 2:34pm 1624242856

Exactly, remove automatic work visa for students and see who genuinely come here for education. If they don’t want to come here, that’s fine. Universities will scream but their first and foremost duty needs to be to educate NZers. Not pine hopes on international fees.

by Advisor | 22nd Jun 21, 9:11am 1624309865

Labour party's decision to provide automatic 2+ year work visas to all international students upon graduation means those grads and their families become fully covered by our public health system to the same extent as NZ citizens are.

As if the system wasn't already struggling with capacity, funding and quality issues.

by Lapun | 21st Jun 21, 2:21pm 1624242109

To be fair the elderly parent visa was killed off a few years ago. It was just another random, non-discussed, arbitrary policy shift by INZ that must have caused plenty of misery for those about to apply. Personally I've no problem with elderly parent immigrants so long as they are not working and are financially sound - bringing with them full health insurance and a meaningful pension. Most will live with their recent immigrant families so they will not be impacting our housing shortage. My same liberal attitude does not apply to low paid immigrants particularly when they have arrived via a meaningless student route - why is our govt using immigration as a means of subsidizing tertiary education and especially PTEs (Private Training Establishments).

by Jarlaith | 21st Jun 21, 8:37pm 1624264628

Most of the immigrants I know are educated and don’t necessarily have a higher living standard here because they’ve come from wealthier countries where they would earn more. Then again, I’m not going to pretend that that is the reality for all immigrants who have come to NZ.

by theglc | 21st Jun 21, 2:27pm 1624242433

as anyone other than orchids noticed these missing 36000 workers?

by realterms | 21st Jun 21, 2:33pm 1624242814

orchards?

by The_Lorax | 21st Jun 21, 6:49pm 1624258176

So... GPD up and population down? GDP per capita increasing with less immigration?!
Gasp!

by Te Kooti | 22nd Jun 21, 9:42am 1624311764

You do realise the GDP increase was Government spending and we now have less people to repay the debt?

by RickStrauss | 22nd Jun 21, 10:38am 1624315128

Our whole economy is based on running up massive debt and passing it to following generations to pay for.

by gnx | 21st Jun 21, 7:37pm 1624261071

I read Michael Barnett’s piece in the paper.

Perhaps he should ask the meat company he refers to as to why they built a line to process halal meats hundreds of kilometres from a mosque and why they didn’t consider staffing ffs

And take some responsibility for encouraging an economic model where nearly every industry has become reliant on foreign labour.

Maybe we could close the shops at twelve on saturdays and all play sport in the afternoon.. sundays too and see the family.Have we ever tried this?

Oh we need to repay our debts... bugger

by HouseMouse | 21st Jun 21, 10:09pm 1624270197

One of the old neoliberal dinosaurs.

by gnx | 21st Jun 21, 9:34pm 1624268044

by nktokyo | 22nd Jun 21, 5:53am 1624298010

We are going to grow our economy with a flat-to-shrinking population, while decreasing national debt.

Oink oink flap flap.

by KH | 22nd Jun 21, 9:02am 1624309338

Somebody said here once that if you bring your elderly parents in here and then depart. If they are not eligible for National super they get an "emergency benefit"
1. Is that true?

by gnx | 22nd Jun 21, 8:29pm 1624350550

I read the NZIBF statement about immigration and how all our industries are screwed without staff... interested to know who they were it didn’t take long to find out
Have a Google .
Business NZ, the banks and aquantiences.
Expect a barrage of daily cries from the EMA, the Chamber,the banks, twenty other similar sounding umbrella organisations and National.
It’s a bugger when the market works in the people’s favour.... not supposed to work like that old chap