Foreign worker arrivals in NZ could be back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year

The number of people coming to this country on work visas is gathering pace.

The latest figures from Statistics NZ show that 1222 people arrived in the country on work visas in August, which is the highest number since border restrictions were introduced to combat the Covid pandemic in March 2020.

The numbers are still well down compared to pre-pandemic levels, when more than 4000 people a month arrived on work visas between September 2019 and February 2020.

However, overseas worker arrivals are now increasing rapidly, rising from 527 in May to 571 in June, 696 in July and 1222 in August.

If that trend continues the numbers could be back up to pre-pandemic levels of around 4000 a month by the end of the year.

However, migration appeared to make very little difference to this country's total population in August, with Statistics NZ estimating that the number of people leaving long term and those arriving long term were roughly the same.

Statistics NZ's provisional estimates are that 7851 people left NZ long term in August and 7804 arrived long term, giving a net gain of just 47 for the month.

There was an estimated net loss of 1589 NZ citizens for the month (2225 long term arrivals minus 3814 long term departures), which was balanced by a net gain of 1637 non-NZ citizens (7851 arrivals and 7804 departures).

Overseas student arrivals remained very low for the month at just 532 in August, but those numbers are not expected to improve significantly until the end of the year as students start to arrive for the start of the 2023 academic year.

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