The coalition Government plans to crack down on low-skilled work visas and devise a long term population plan to guide future policy settings.
Erica Stanford, the Minister of Immigration, told TVNZ that current levels of net migration were unsustainable.
Net migration into New Zealand was 126,000 during 2023 and the numbers from January were also strong, with another 20,000 people arriving on work visas.
The Immigration Minister said that was not sustainable but had to be considered in the broader context of the covid-19 pandemic.
“Literally, the country emptied out. I think in 2021, we had negative net migration of about 15,000. So you do need to look at it in that context and not catastrophize,” she said.
She said high net migration was having some impact on inflation and housing costs, but there were positive and negative effects in both cases.
While New Zealand could not cope with 126,000 arrivals every year, this large inflow of new workers was “recuperation migration”.
The other important factor was that many work visas were for two or three years, but because few had been issued during the covid years there weren’t any workers leaving.
“So under normal circumstances, you would have people leaving and people coming in. Part of this high net migration is the fact that people aren't leaving yet”.
Her expectation was that net migration would get back into “equilibrium” over time as the covid disruption normalized.
Readers may remember the difficulty booking in for a haircut shortly after the first lockdown ended. That spike in demand smoothed out quickly and migration may do the same.
Stanford said she wasn’t going to set a specific cap on migration levels but was taking a “careful look” at what was happening.
“What I do not want to do, is what Labour did last year: a knee jerk reaction without thinking about the unintended consequences”.
Long-term planning
The Productivity Commission, the Treasury, and now Prime Minister Christopher Luxon have all asked for a Government Policy Statement on population growth.
This would be a document that plans for a particular population growth rate and matches it with the infrastructure and services required, officials call this ‘absorptive capacity’.
Stanford told TVNZ this work was now underway but the immediate focus was on adjusting the short term settings for “low skilled migrants”.
“When we left Government, half of the migrants we were bringing in were skill level one and two. Those are your doctors, nurses, and professionals”.
“That has completely changed: 52% of the people we brought in last year were skill level four and five. That is your cleaners, fast food chefs, and laborers”.
She said this was because of the accredited employment visa, a program where employers could sponsor migrants for jobs paying the median wage and that were first offered locally.
The minister wouldn’t talk specifically about what changes she was considering, but said the accredited employee work visa rules would be tightened.
“If you look back to what we used to do, I'm considering all of those things and some new things,” she said.
This could include more stringent labour market checks, such as pushing employers to prove they have been unable to fill these jobs from the local labour pool.
“We are basically operating on a pinky promise with employers, at the moment,” she said.
Short term changes might be announced in “the next month or so” but the Government policy statement was a piece of work for the “very long term” and would come later.
The accredited work visa has been under review since August last year and that report was due to be delivered last December.
Stanford said she hasn’t seen it yet but will hold off on policy changes so that any findings can be factored into the revised visa settings. It is expected to be released in the next few weeks.
81 Comments
Once we only talked immigration. But now the "population" word has crept in.
A marvellous step. Because you can't decide immigration until after you decide population.
Of course this government still sees population growth in the future, and I would prefer them to think 'no increase'.
But they will see the sense of a stable population in due course.
We have progress.
The problem is that the value to the economy of bringing in employees -> for a business to grow, is less than the cost for NZ to pay for the infrastructure upgrade to support the immigrant. So the business that needs the immigrant/employee is effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer.. which isnt fair or sustainable, as the infrastructure falls behind and we all lose out.
I reckon any business needing an immigrant to fill a role should pay the $100,000's needed to extend out healthcare, road,police etc for the lifetime of the immigrant. it would change the dynamic in an instant - more kiwis would stay in NZ, public services would improve and we would have proper debate about getting beneficerial back to work and improving schooling and training. let alone the investment in tech to improve productivoty at last. Sute some businesses wouldnt be able to grow or sustain revenue for a while - but then they arent really sustainable businesses anyway.
It's not really the raw population growth that should be discussed, but the demographics.
Our workforce is plummetting, and our number of dependents is going to the moon. If our population stays the same, she's no bueno.
A discussion around this would carry some severe ramifications for our pay-as-you-go taxation system, that most of the population is gloriously oblivious to.
If the problem is too many old folk with your solution is take in immigrants then you are missing a critical factor. I arrived 22 years ago and have been on Super for ten. How do you stop permanent immigrants from getting older and retiring and getting ill and needing care?
Most of our incoming migrants are between the age of 20-34. They're younger than the average New Zealander. They usually have a higher workforce participation rate as well. That's a while to pay taxes before you're pulling super.
Fact is no one modelled this when all the current liabilities were enacted (universal super, aged care etc), and account for the declining birth rate that's come with rapid urbanisation. Or they've just been blind to it.
Our public liabilities can only grow with the status quo, so if the demographics remain on trend, the remaining workers either have to pay more for the same, or get less, but probably both.
And it'll be harder to be more productive, because more of the smaller labour force will be engaged in relatively unproductive care of more oldies.
The upside for anyone willing enough is that this fact related information is now over subscribed to. So while it'll demotivate much of the work force and diminish productivity, those motivated enough have less competition.
Most everyone's still going to get old, and need somewhere to live. Student loans are increasingly a super bad investment given the diminished returns of tertiary education. In light of this, people may need to make different plans that the common narrative.
Can't deny most are between 20 and 34 (are you including students working towards residency otherwise maybe 24 to 34 would be more accurate for working immigrants; there is also the issue of children - I had four - and possibly parents depending on the ever changing rules) but even those 30 year olds will be retiring in 35 years. Given our 2.8% population growth by the time they retire NZ's population will have compounded to over 255% so the number of caregivers will have to grow 255% too. Ditto hospitals, roads, houses. That would be it spiralling out of control; so immigration will be controlled at some point in the future - better to plan our population now.
That 20-34 is somewhat of a sweet spot for a migrant. It's hundreds of thousands of dollars to birth and raise a 20 year old New Zealander, who is also going to retire. Today's migrants are people we never bred in the 90s and 2000s, and given our sliding birth rate, we'll no doubt bring some more later for all the kiwis not being born today. THAT is our population policy, until we abandon our current social democratic system, abandon economic growth, or find some way to supplant humans in our economy in a substantive way. Others with greater resources have thus far failed to do this.
In terms of the compounding aspect, you need to consider our current age distribution - we have a disproportionate number of boomers and older, who are going to drop out of the system over the coming decades. Once that occurs, our demographics won't be as weighted towards supporting as many non productive dependents.
It's that large cohort of oldies that spiralled out of control, we didn't supply exponentially growing families to be able to support them.
Well ?
Look at the quality of the 200,000 that they have just let in. An awful lot of those were low paid workers who are lucky if they are paying any tax at all. Look at the many cases of barely employed immigrants living 30 to a flat. Probably what little work they have paid under the table. And that is the trip of the ice berg. Even if they were gainfully employed and paying tax, at what level of income do you need before you contribute more tax that the value of the government funded benefits and services that you consume. At least the average wage, probably higher.
Those 200,000 I suspect are weighted to single or unaccompanied men. By the time we get down the track how many spouses and brides will they bring to join them. Then of course there is the endless string of other family that come in under the Family reunification scheme. So those 200,000 are more likely to end up more like 5000,000 -800,000 I would guess. I very much doubt that all this immigration is doing any good at all for our economy and certainly not any where approaching the value of all the great Kiwis who have given up on our immigration fueled low wage/housing ponzie economy.
Just imagine, with a smaller population human civilisation may miss out on collapse/extinction?
Ocean temperatures off the charts.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Rate of record breaking temperatures accelerating.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/17/february-on-course-…
James Hansen: "By May the 12-month running-mean global temperature relative to 1880-1920 should be +1.6-1.7°C and not fall below +1.4 ± 0.1°C during the next La Nina minimum. Thus, given the planetary energy imbalance, it will be clear that the 1.5°C ceiling has been passed for all practical purposes."
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2024/Groundhog.04January2024.pdf
You aren't even near asking the right question. It's not "Who's going to do the work?", it's "we need to dramatically decrease the amount of work we do, how do we achieve that?"
We would need to fundamentally alter how billions of people live.
Which I'm personally not opposed to at all, but I don't think the required lifestyle adjustment would suit many voters.
We're slowly going there anyway, domesticated homo sapiens have less children and are slowly losing the ability to consume as many resources.
Honestly, physics doesn't care what voters think. Incrementalism hasn't worked and won't work.
The '20s are the time everything changes. The road to human extinction will be clear by the end of the decade. The good news is, we won't have to wring our hands over super :-)
More good news - The battle to feed humanity is over - "FAO’s forecast for world cereal production in 2023 has been revised upward by 13.2 million tonnes (0.5 percent) this month and is set to reach a record high of 2 836 million tonnes."
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/
Famines have always occurred as the result of a complex mix of ‘technical’ and ‘political’ factors,4 but the developments of the modern industrial era have generally reduced the salience of natural constraints in causing famine. This includes many developments discussed in other pages of Our World in Data, such as the increasing availability of food per person, made possible through increasing agricultural yields; improvements in healthcare and sanitation; increased trade; reduced food prices and food price volatility; as well as reductions in the number of people living in extreme poverty. Over time, famines have become increasingly “man-made”-phenomena, becoming more clearly attributable to political causes, including non-democratic government and conflict. Paradoxically, over the course of the 20th century famine was virtually eradicated from most of the world, whilst over the same period there occurred some of the worst famines in recorded history. This is because many of the major famines of the 20th century were the outcome of wars or totalitarian regimes.
Bollocks
We are eating our way through fossil energy - literally. And when that stops, forget your hype.
http://theoildrum.com/node/5925
Worth the read.
Worth the read.
In 2009, the author is calling for birth rate reduction policy.
In 2024, the birth rate has fallen in some places by 30% since 2009, all on its own.
Conclusion; Soothsayers often aren't worth listening to, because they usually focus in on only a small part of a larger picture.
More good news. "In inflation-adjusted terms, natural gas has never been cheaper."
https://www.interest.co.nz/economy/126340/us-inflation-expectations-eas…
Cheap gas? Caused by Anthrogenic global warming apparently.
https://www.ft.com/content/08fa8ef9-8da9-49d0-97ab-3abbe5855d50
Increasing yields, decreasing nutrition.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/vanishing-nutrients/
"another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition…
But that's OK because we are steralising ourselves with AgChem, among other things, so we ultimately won't need the record amounts of nutritionless food we are growing.:-)
"studies have found that chlormequat is linked to infertility, disrupted fetal growth, delayed puberty and disruptions to the metabolic system."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/02/16/what-is-chlormequ…
Nutritionless "food" soaked in agchem soup. Yeah, we need to congratulate ourselves on our cleverness.
"Average application rates in the 1950s were 1,200, 1,700, and 2,400 grams of active ingredient used per hectare for fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides respectively. By the 2000s the average use rates of newly introduced products were reduced to 100, 40, and 75 g/ha respectively – about 95% lower on average."
"On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.01116…
Interesting. The GM Tech is the fastest path to herbicide/ pesticide resistance. Your cheering of increasing yield using gene tech is premature.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/07/us-weedkiller-ban-d…
US farm income? Hasn't changed much in twenty years.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-deta…
The Guardian? Yes, The Guardian, quoting court findings.
I note the figures you supply for the decline in active ingredients are per application. Where are the seasonal figures? The total figures? A.I. is not the end of toxicity in agchem. There are other non active ingredients, such as surfactants that increase the efficacy (read toxicity) of a.i.
"The global agricultural consumption of pesticides grew mostly steadily from 1990 to 2021. In the latter year, pesticide consumption worldwide stood at nearly 3.54 million metric tons. This trend reflects the increasing demand for crop protection chemicals to enhance agricultural productivity and food security in the face of climate change, pest resistance, and population growth."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263077/global-pesticide-agricultur….
More crop, less nutrition.
Interesting the rate of increase in total active ingredients is leveling off, as per your reference. Seems chemical engineering is hitting the limits in what it can provide in terms of crop protection? Predictable.
Being involved in primary industry I have personal experience of several products/action families that have become useless just over the the last couple of decades and the problem is accelerating!
There is no magic pill for the problems we have created with overpopulation, over consumption, habitat destruction and waste dumping. Malthus may not have foreseen the industrial revolution and it's attendant destruction of the biosphere, but he sure had a clearer view of reality than the techno fantisists of today!
"we need to dramatically decrease the amount of work we do, how do we achieve that?" - both my 1st world mother & my grandmothers and my wife's 3rd world mother and her grandmothers were women who worked far harder than almost any woman works today but that work is handled by machines now. Despite now correctly being called the age of comfort the average woman is now in the waged economy. Why did we create all these new paid jobs? How can we get rid of them?
"women who worked far harder than almost any woman works today but that work is handled by machines now."
We all know a large % of jobs are what David Graeber would have termed Bull Shit jobs. They serve no purpose other than keeping people occupied and circulating money through our economic system. In fact you could say many of them are anti jobs, that is they actively slow down what other people try to achieve, although they still consume real world resources, but that is another story.
Why did we create these jobs?
I don't pretend to be an expert in anthropology and the answers will be complex. Cheap energy and mechanisation meant a large part of the previously engaged workforce had to find a means to support themselves, find self worth and then there's the idle hands thing. Unoccupied young men can really destabilise a society. Sending them off to butcher some other societies population isn't that constructive. WW2 was the turning point. All this massive industrial capacity wasting away. Enter the invention of consumer society, feeding itself on a glut of energy, marketing and the mythology of the American (everywhere western) dream. Increasing complexity, increasing consumer base, specialisation, globalisation, fiat money creation. The perfect system for the infinite planet and dreamers of a Star Trek future.
How do we get rid of them?
Now that is a question. I would like to say recognising limits and incrementalism, but something tells me this system will be maintained until it crashes. The mythology is strong and reinforced continuously. Humans are not rational actors, otherwise we wouldn't be here looking at environmental, resource and societal collapse. The money printing will get faster, infrastucture will age, the howls for more growth will get louder, even as previous growth only made things worse, more people will drop off the edges and live in sacrifice zones, as access to affordable energy declines and then the edges will move towards the centre. Complexity will unravel and machines will sit idle.
"the average woman is now in the waged economy."
Yes it's fascinating isn't it. Some commentators I've read say this is a product of full male employment back in the '60s. There had to be a way to get more work done, more consumers into the system holding pay cheques. On the downside the short termists didn't compute the crash in birth rate, which in turn crashed future consumer numbers. I guess the plan was for women to have 5 kids and a job? I know, there's all sorts of other popular stories told about the power of liberation, the pill etc, but I tend to think it's mainly a product of the energy bonanza. If we can't quite manage the transition to the fusion powered future, it'll be back to muscle power and the top heavy sit down jobs will vanish faster than you can say grab the shovel.
Internally within New Zealand Dan the natural thing is that net movement is out of Auckland each year. More leave than enter.
That's different from how it's commonly portrayed. Been that way for many years.
Auckland growth is international. Weird.
But it's the people's choice.
I don't remember Winnie being the leader of any winning party, Labour or National. Happy to be corrected but it seems most immigration policy has been solely directed by Labour and National in the last few years. With Labour trying to outdo National on every level: immigration, house price inflation, child poverty, transport & food inflation, waitlists... all going up... hmm I think they missed the memo. Neither is good but it would take someone born yesterday to think the last 6 years has made the country any better on any level that matters to the general public.
I did manage to find one , more security guards in hospitals
Here is the full speech.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/02/livestream-prime-minist…
The whole Immigration / Visa / Citizenship system is heavily flawed and beyond ridiculous.
My Mrs is Thai and we have been through the system from the initial tourist visa to work visa to resident visa to permanent resident visa to citizen. It is ridiculously easy and is very much a "trust-based system". My Mrs went through the entire system and never said one word to anyone at the Immigration Department or Internal Affairs (which handles citizenship applications) and certainly never met anyone. There really wasn't a lot we had to do to prove her language skills or her connections to the country etc.
We know many in the Thai community and have seen first-hand how Thais who speak almost no English and who don't intend to stay in the country (two requirements for citizenship) were granted citizenship. Some engaged Immigration agents / lawyers to assist them, some simply had help form their switched on Kiwi partner.
The Thai language Facebook groups for Thais in New Zealand are full of information about how to navigate the system, how to claim benefits, how to rort the tax system etc. It's really sad. To be clear, I'm not berating the Thai community in which we have many friends, and I know from the Indian community of similar things going on.
Same story: I arrived and brought my PI girlfriend and her four children with me. INZ was and still is pathetic. As it happens my wife's English (her 3rd language) is better than mine (English born to English parents, Scottish University) but no INZ attempt to check. Fortunately for NZ taxpayers we have one child in Austrlia and the other three are working in Auckland on above average salaries and paying taxes.
Probably a dutch auction for visas would be better than an easy to rort system which is designed to bring in the devious and keep out the honest.
The Nats and Winston first with the latter having blathered on in the past about immigration have had 6 and 3 years respectively to come up with an immigration/population policy.
Seem to recall comments about Labour when they got in first time 6 years ago having done nothing for the previous six years while in opposition.
Seems pretty much the same for all the political parties. Draw a salary while in opposition, try to score a few points off the govt. and not do any groundwork.
yes and this minister in opposition was the one jumping up and down telling labour to open the borders and let more in, now in charge saying they let to many in
Removing open work rights from partners of skilled migrants is the number 1 stupidest thing Michael Wood has done in the immigration portfolio. No wonder Hosking voted Wood as the greatest threat to the economy. Gvt must U-turn on this immediately.
Mmm, not entirely. But good service and quality isn't free, and some people place that above raw price as the most important value.
Same philosophy goes everywhere. Oak sell more tins of fruit than Watties. It's a little cheaper, but it's also inferior. You don't want to compete with Oak.
in her mind chefs are skilled workers , she is a real piece of work you cannot believe anything she says as that changes to suit the political landscape of the time
Follow
Minister makes a welcome but very overdue change to immigration instructions regarding chefs. I raised the issue in July, Hospo NZ met him on 5 Aug & the very simple change wasn’t made until today. Next backflip needed is reinstating open work rights for partners from December.
No need for level four certificate any more.
So now Erica we’re open to take anyone who pretends to be a cook? Those without full qualifications aren’t chefs they are at best trainee cooks. I know we have a massive shortage of hospitality staff BUT the public deserve to pay for quality not sub standard rubbish.
My Girls and Partner back from 5 day trip to Tay Tay in Melb. Comments
- Melb is full of young people (18-28) way more then Auckland.
- Public transport is very very good (trams etc).
- Food and petrol a lot cheaper. Lots of toll roads everywhere ( hint lets do it... oh that was labour and they did not do it...)
- They felt a lot safer in downtown Melb then downtown Auckland. More visable police and less bums on the street yelling at fairies. the two events they saw the police smashed the perp and into the back of the police van, no nonsense ( probably no familly conferences down the track either).
- There are actually shops you want to goto in downtown Melb.
- They both want to move to Aussie and study at Melb or Syd Uni now and are actively looking at options since back.
It's only one city in Aussie but so much better than Auckland as ranked by young people. They are well travelled in NZ and just do not rate WGTN or CHCH. More and more NZers making the same decision.
NZ is going to struggle to hold onto our young grads when Aussie offers so much more. I think the passage of rite was the UK OE, now I think maybe just going to Aussie even earlier and Uni there.
For those unaware NZers can transfer there super to Aussie and retire there if they wish... more will do this and we will not even get their GST etc
Aussie has better wages, education, housing, transport, healthcare, events for families, career growth, food, ... why on earth do people stay in NZ unless they physically have to and even then it is not good financial sense to stay in NZ not unless family are giving free childcare. The risk long term to any family with the depreciation of our healthcare is a tangible risk to any family wellbeing (alongside financial risk).
5 years in Aus will put you 25 years further ahead of where NZ is at. As in it would take NZ decades to catch up and by then anyone in Aus is already benefitting from the better lifestyle for those decades rather then trying to make it in NZ. In NZ the chances of dying of something that has treatment & management in Aus is quite tangible. Sure NZ has less spiders, but I have never met a spider that could hold its own against the hard end of a book and NZ has way too many human spiders ready to steal from you.
Can confirm the food tastes better here (and that was our biggest surprise in the move). Financially, it's also a breath of fresh air - the combination of increased pay plus reduce expenses has seen our future planning compress 6 years of NZ progress into 9 months! Our Aussie mates are talking about a cost-of-living crisis because they can only holiday every second weekend, and abroad once a year, now. They are gobsmacked when we tell them the prices of things in NZ.
Note, have workmates in their 30's also leaving NZ in the very near future.
Speaking to family recently who live in Perth, and have been getting 35-39degrees daily and it is too hot to go out and enjoy much as a result, personally i’d opt for a cooler climate and 4 seasons. Makes sense though why Sydney and Melbourne are so popular even if they do get some real heat waves
Good to finally see progress towards a population strategy.
Something the productivity commission recommended and something I've argued for many times in comments.
My personally preference is for the population strategy target to be to maximise wellbeing per capita
(net economic + social + environmental benefits) / population.
Clearly excessive immigration by government after government has helped lead to the massive social (housing shortage & high house/rent prices) and the other infrastructure deficits we have.
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