Young New Zealanders are leaving in droves, as borders reopen and economic conditions tighten at home.
The latest data from Stats NZ found that in the year to March, annual net migration was negative, with 7,300 more people leaving than entering.
That loss marks a dramatic shift from early in the COVID-19 pandemic when border closures and the relative safety of virus-free New Zealand prevented many from leaving. In the year to March 2020 there was a record net gain of 91,700.
Now, many New Zealanders — particularly young professionals and graduates — are heading off overseas once more. Some are driven by tough economic conditions in New Zealand, which is dealing with high inflation of 6.9 percent, housing unaffordability and sky-high living costs: gasoline, rent, mortgage interest rates and groceries are all on the rise.
The latest figures “demonstrate just how momentous really the shift has been in New Zealand’s migration outcomes,” changing to a net loss from 50,000 to 60,000 annual net gains in the years leading up to the pandemic, Infometrics principal economist and director Brad Olsen said.
“It’s a huge reversal — and the first time we’ve seen those negative figures since the global financial crisis, the Christchurch earthquakes and the Australian mining boom all combined in the early 2010s,” he said.
Stats NZ said the losses were driven by young adults, with a particular increase in New Zealand citizens aged 18 to 27 leaving. With unemployment already at a low of 3.2 percent, economists said the loss of more of the workforce via migration could create ongoing labor shortages.
“The difficulty finding workers is extreme around the country — you have a smaller working age population than the year before, at a time when everyone is desperately calling out for workers. [It] really just exacerbates the pressures that businesses are under,” Olsen said.
Last month, government documents estimated that 50,000 people would leave over the next year — but that the number could swell to 125,000 if the many young people who had delayed post-graduation trips during the pandemic left, too.
Asked about those projected losses, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that overseas trips were “part of our history” and a rite of passage for many New Zealanders, adding that she had spent time living in London.
“It has been part of our history as a nation to frequently have New Zealanders come and go as part of our overseas experience, building skills and talent,” she said.
Olsen said there were a mixture of contributing factors, including pent-up demand from those who delayed leaving over the past two years, high living costs, housing unaffordability and delays fully reopening New Zealand’s borders, which meant lower numbers of migrants coming in.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
DIVERSIFY: While Japan already has plentiful access to LNG, a pipeline from Alaska would help it move away from riskier sources such as Russia and the Middle East Japan is considering offering support for a US$44 billion gas pipeline in Alaska as it seeks to court US President Donald Trump and forestall potential trade friction, three officials familiar with the matter said. Officials in Tokyo said Trump might raise the project, which he has said is key for US prosperity and security, when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time in Washington as soon as next week, the sources said. Japan has doubts about the viability of the proposed 1,287km pipeline — intended to link fields in Alaska’s north to a port in the south, where