Migration flows still negative with a net loss of 7500 people over the 12 months to January

Public Policy / news

More New Zealand citizens left the country long-term in December and January than arrived back from overseas

14th Mar 22, 1:41pm by Greg Ninness

New Zealand is continuing to lose more people overseas than it's gaining through immigration.

According to Statistics NZ, 2076 people arrived in NZ long-term in January while 2634 departed long-term, giving a net loss of 558 people for the month.

Over the 12 months to the end of January there've only been two months (September and October 2021) when arrivals have exceeded departures.

That produced a net migration loss of 7508 people in the 12 months to the end of January, which was the first time total departures exceeded total arrivals for that time period since the year to January 2013, when there was a net loss of 8544.

In the year to January 2021 there was a net gain of 24,981 and in the year to January 2020 there was a net gain of 77,266 (the chart below shows the 12 month rolling trend).

The all time high was a net gain of 91,680 in the 12 months to March 2020.

The monthly figures suggest the number of long-term arrivals and departures to and from NZ have both slowed considerably since the middle of last year.

There was also a net loss of NZ citizens in December 2021 and January 2022, as more New Zealanders left long-term than arrived back after an extended stay overseas, although the numbers are still small.

In December 2021 there was a net loss of 294 NZ citizens, and in January this year there was a net loss of 261 NZ citizens.

Apart from June and August last year, the number of NZ citizens returning to or leaving long-term each month had been strongly in positive territory since August 2019.

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Net long term migration

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Source: Statistics NZ

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38 Comments

by Chris-M | 14th Mar 22, 1:57pm 1647219440

For young people hoping to ever buy a home who would ever stay here. Low wages and impossibly high house prices. A recipe to loose a whole generation of young people.

by GV 27 | 14th Mar 22, 2:01pm 1647219716

Well that's OK, we'll just bring in more people.

by J.C. | 14th Mar 22, 2:23pm 1647221032

Well that's OK, we'll just bring in more people.

Plenty of eager Chinese migrants with big sacks of money isn't there?

by company of heroes | 14th Mar 22, 2:46pm 1647222379

Wish more Chinese migrants come and save our property market? You must be dreaming...

by Advisor | 14th Mar 22, 2:33pm 1647221583

I think we've stimulated our way to growth to such an extent that any further stimulus, population and monetary, would speed up our journey towards stagflation and a hard landing on housing.

Jacinda and her other teammates were obviously hoping to tinker around with broken policies and underinvestment in skills, infrastructure and education long enough to retire with a beefy housing portfolio.

Enter Putin and a novel virus, and we have our economic distress arriving a few years before expected!

by Advisor | 14th Mar 22, 2:09pm 1647220192

Those were pre-pandemic problems. I'd be thrilled if saving enough deposit for a house on low wages was the major challenge facing our young.

Most would be caught in a spiral struggling to fuel up their cars, so they can get to work to be able to cover their incidentals and have enough to pay for fuel the next time.

by Independent_Observer | 14th Mar 22, 2:12pm 1647220371

Yip things are going from bad to worse…the only hope of that out of control inflation is there saviour to destroy a system that is working completely against them and completely in favour of the already wealthy

by Gummy Bear Hero | 14th Mar 22, 2:31pm 1647221482

... last week we had the " cost of cauliflower crisis " ... this week it's the " Putin petrol price pandemic " .... OMG ... what's next ! ...

by HouseMouse | 14th Mar 22, 2:45pm 1647222354

China invading Taiwan, hiking up the cost of cheap junk

by Blackdog | 14th Mar 22, 3:45pm 1647225939

Taiwan manufacture computer chips, interrupting that supply would be more damaging than losing the 8% of oil Russia supply.

by Advisor | 14th Mar 22, 4:17pm 1647227855

Cheap junk you say? At farmgate prices, you'd have to ship out a tonne of whole milk powder to pay for a couple of iPhones (airpods excluded) that come in from China.

The only reason we enjoy relatively high living standards in this day and age are good farming conditions and our "advanced economy" title that lets us bring in things on the cheap: 1) foreign workers and 2) borrowings from international markets.

by Tee | 14th Mar 22, 2:17pm 1647220669

Did our Government leave it to RBNZ to manage full employment and low inflation?

by Gummy Bear Hero | 14th Mar 22, 2:27pm 1647221254

... yes they did ... which must cause Adrian Orr some degree of stress , attempting to juggle low inflation & low unemployment at the same time ...

by Independent_Observer | 14th Mar 22, 2:11pm 1647220290

Who are the people farmers going to farm if the flock keep escaping to greener pastures?

The government kept the fences closed for a few years to lock the sheeples in bad pastures and the people farmers thought everything was wonderful while they fleeced them for everything they could for their own self interest and wondered why they wanted to leave.

by Nzdan | 14th Mar 22, 2:51pm 1647222683

They can farm 18 year olds. 60k live births per year 18 years ago, that's enough to fill 15k rentals at 4 per dwelling assuming none have died, permanently moved overseas or have no need to rent.

But Jan to Dec 2021 there were 32k first home buyers, so that's 8k less rentals potentially needed at 4 per dwelling.
Take off 1800 rental properties for the net migration loss of 7500 at 4 per dwelling

Crude numbers we need 5k rental properties per year to keep up. This doesn't cover additional supply of properties vacated from death/retirement village, not easy to measure. Could add 10k for the 40k homeless people nationwide although technically that's a Kainga Ora problem.

But uh-oh, RBNZ C31 reports 38k Investor borrowers from Jan to Dec 2021. While some Investor purchases will be existing rental stock changing hands, only 13% of those purchases need to be a net addition to the stock to meet demand (or 39% if also housing the homeless).

by Independent_Observer | 14th Mar 22, 3:02pm 1647223334

And boomers, with many now entering their 70's, will be looking at smaller homes, retirement villages, or there appear to be many widowed women in that age group (might just be an anomaly and not representative of society...but I know a number of boomer females who have lost partners already). They appear to be hanging on living in the family houses they were previously but clearly not managing so will need to downsize in the next 5 years.

Big transformations taking place at present.

by Nifty1 | 14th Mar 22, 2:15pm 1647220550

Don't worry, Jacinda is going to let the floodgates open... everyone invited.

by Waikatohome | 14th Mar 22, 3:20pm 1647224453

I think you will find that encouraging immigration is an ACT policy.

by GV 27 | 14th Mar 22, 3:28pm 1647224893

Remind me, who has actually been in power since September 2017 again?

by Waikatohome | 14th Mar 22, 3:45pm 1647225919

Labour and immigration is now negative. Which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective.

by Zen20 | 14th Mar 22, 4:13pm 1647227636

We could learn a lot from our national living fossil, no not Jim Bolger but the tuatara of course. Do as little as possible and enjoy a peaceful long life. Less is more is the only way forward.

by chebbo | 14th Mar 22, 2:29pm 1647221347

Despite campaigning on a platform of reduced immigration, the graph shows it didn't take Labour long (~12 months) after winning the 2017 election to turn an already decreasing net migration rate into an increasing one, to the point where in March 2020 when the borders were slammed shut due to COVID-19, it had hit a record high.

This isn't just policy failure. It's a clear example of promising one thing, and then doing the complete opposite.

They then have the nerve to turn around and blame local government for failing infrastructure. I can sympathise with those who are leaving.

by Carlos67 | 14th Mar 22, 2:56pm 1647222969

Yep peaked at 95,000 arrivals so I hardly think a few thousand leaving is going to worry them. We will have net positive gains again before Christmas that will outnumber all those that have left and then some.

by Nzdan | 14th Mar 22, 3:45pm 1647225940

Any reason why Immigration New Zealand didn't follow through with the reductions, given it was clearly a talking point at the elections? Blissful ignorance? Do you think Labour took over, and then walked into INZ's offices and said "Right guys, we want you to crank up the immigration numbers pronto"?

Probably filled with National supporters bitter their team lost, so worked hard destroy Labour's policy on reducing Immigration numbers.

by singautim | 14th Mar 22, 4:29pm 1647228578

Why INZ didn't follow through??? Well the obvious reason is blithering incompetence. A long long history of incompetence. There are far too many examples but the one that will specifically rankles with me was when I sponsored my son-in-law for a mere visitor's visa to attend my Kiwi daughter giving birth to their first child. INZ took over two months to assign to a case officer, that case officer was in a country 2,000km from Auckland and 3,400km from where my son-in-law was living in his home country. The grandchild was born a month before they started the processing. I was willing to guarantee my son-in-law to over $1m. Rankle is too mild a word. But that is one of many examples over the last 20 years.

The real question is why is INZ so pathetic and unkind. That goes back to politics; give INZ a policy that has been transparently debated and publicly accepted and then a few people with both empathy and brains might start working for INZ.

by Nzdan | 14th Mar 22, 4:49pm 1647229754

Yes, like many other Government Departments over the last 20 years. Like I said, and referring to Custard's comment below, Labour's publicly stated immigration targets were a reduction of 20k to 30k. Very black and white.

The fact that Immigration NZ couldn't achieve this has nothing to do politics and everything to do with incompetency that is rife with our unelected Government departments. I'll gladly change my tune if someone can point out how much clearer Labour should have made it to INZ what the goal was. Is there an internal memo from Cindy to INZ stating "Please ignore our election promises lolol"?

100k ÷ (48 weeks x 5 days) = 416 approvals per day. 30% reduction = 291 per day. Each day, when you reach the 291th approval you stop. How hard is that? There are no "maybes" in visa applications. It's yes or no.

by custard | 14th Mar 22, 5:25pm 1647231924

Without clear and enforceable quotas and targets, and being left with just vague policy objectives means it’s all a bit hopeless in terms of policy delivery.

I think it got to the point where if the applicant simply met the requirement they were in – and in by the 10’s of thousands – nobody ever said “hang on, wait a minute” – somewhat absurdly it ultimately took a pandemic to bring it to a halt.

I would like to see a greater use of quotas - and less use of "pathways".

by singautim | 14th Mar 22, 6:06pm 1647234394

Other sane countries say if the number of immigrants working in a job area is above say 33% then something is wrong and needs fixing before anymore are allowed in. For example this would lead to our care-workers for the elderly being paid more rather than sucking in experience from poorer 3rd world countries.

by Nzdan | 14th Mar 22, 6:12pm 1647234755

Maybe I give autonomous government departments too much faith in their ability to have developed their own internal quota models/metrics. Once you have those in place, then you can work backwards from a desired set total number for net migration.

Hey INZ, your job is to limit net migration to 70k per year. That's a clear and enforceable target. How do they decide what this 70k is made up of????? I dunno, talk to the Department of Labour. Talk to WINZ. NZ Business Council. Find out where our skills shortages are, and fill them.

Say expats are 40k net migration, then you have 30k for immigrants. Keep a daily run rate, and any expat surpluses = a deduction for the immigrants. Hell, throw in a 10k buffer and model 60k so any potential boost in returning expats in Q4 can be soaked up.

by singautim | 14th Mar 22, 6:03pm 1647234182

The stunning incompetence of INZ has helped me note other Govt departments. They all contain human beings so all are fallible just as even commentators in Interest.co.nz are on occasion. The passport office is magnificent - swift service that matches the best of the commercial world delivered with a smile and a genuine desire to help (that child I mentioned in my previous comment had her passport delivered in 23 hours from the application being submitted!) and MSD providing assistance to elderly folk are pleasant and most forgiving. INZ are uniquely bad - obviously anyone with a heart is excluded from the senior staff and junior staff soon learn that if it hasn't been taken out of the in-tray then they cannot be blamed.

Your method for cutting numbers would allow in more tourist guides, kitchen workers, Uber drivers in and reject the more skilled applicants. And that is where the trouble starts since the only way of distinguishing skill is who is willing to pay and how much. Twenty years ago my application as a skilled computer professional required a piece of paper proving I'd attended an SQL class. I'd given such classes but had no proof.

by Independent_Observer | 14th Mar 22, 4:49pm 1647229785

Having read a few Treasury reports I'm pretty sure that....

1. When a new government is elected it gets briefed by Treasury.

2. Treasury tells the new government that boomer superannuation is going to cripple the government finances

3. The only option available is to bring in hundreds of thousands of people from overseas to generate taxable income to pay for the boomers retirement.

4. Government does a 180 turn on immigration stance and then opens the flood gates.

by Nzdan | 14th Mar 22, 5:08pm 1647230904

We're very spendthrift when it comes to Superannuation, $12b per year regardless of need. Pretty sad when we can't even find less than $1b a year to abolish student loans for many of the superannuatints tenants.

The government can easily capture this $12b back in the form of PAYE and GST, there's no "crippling of finances", the Boomers will still spend their $12b per year. But without the flurry of immigrants pushing down wages then boomers will get less bang for their buck when buying a cup of coffee and we can't have that.

by singautim | 14th Mar 22, 6:13pm 1647234838

Low paid immigrants have children who need education; the family then gets accommodation allowance and WFF along with health benefits this easily exceeds income tax collected. Because the children are correctly counted as Kiwis the stats make low paid immigration seem profitable. You only have to consider swapping say 1m people at random between two countries and both get the supposed immigration dividend.

I was an immigrant in 2003 and have received NZ Super for 7 years.

The solution to paying for Superannuation is to increase the retirement age. Been done in other developed countries.

BTW Highly-paid, highly-skilled immigrants are good for NZ.

by custard | 14th Mar 22, 4:15pm 1647227732

Back in Oct 2017:

“Prime Minister-designate Jacinda Ardern was firm last week in stating Labour would be sticking with its own immigration plan of reducing net migration by 20,000 to 30,000, and repeated it in the announcement of Labour's deal with New Zealand First”

Annual Net Migration: October 2017 - 55,353 March 2020 - 91,680

by singautim | 14th Mar 22, 4:37pm 1647229029

It is difficult to control net migration; the govt can set quotas for arrivals of non-citizens but not immigrants and Kiwis moving on to Australia not Kiwis choosing to return home. However I remember when Andrew Little was leader the policy was to reduce residency from 50k to 35k pa. Even the Greens had a similar policy. When Jacinda took over the policy was not changed but it was deliberately forgotten - I went to a Labour election meeting and the mentioned every one of their policies except immigration. A pity since the meeting was in Birkenhead where multi-ethnic immigration has been both high and unusually successful.

by custard | 14th Mar 22, 5:06pm 1647230799

I think we should value and control our borders more – the pathway to residency of late has just been too wide and too generous.

I would also like to see the various parties tie their immigration policy into their broader population policy – however I don’t know if I‘ve ever seen population policy from any of the major parties – does such a thing exist?

I would have also thought that with all that is going on in the world – a population policy from all would be quite timely.

by singautim | 14th Mar 22, 6:23pm 1647235406

I would love to have a population policy. Target set by voters.

My vote would be for a reduction: advantages would be better lifestyle, good for ecology, easier to meet climate change targets, the wealth from our resources spread more thickly. The disadvantages would be decline in property prices (I own 3), it is far harder managing a decline than a growth.

Those two disadvantages don't bother me. Property prices decline would mean young workers buying their own place not living with family and the seriously disadvantaged in state housing instead of being shuffled between motels and hostels. Being a manager ought to be tough - our senior public servants are well paid. Let them plan the conversion of what would be unneeded poor housing into beautiful parks instead of the opposite.

by PocketAces | 14th Mar 22, 5:07pm 1647230865

We already have more than enough people for the housing we have. We are better to work with what we have than to continue hauling in more and more people putting pressure on housing again.

We are living in an overpopulated world, best we start working on how to prosper without growth imho