Migration last five years
The latest monthly migration stats confirm the trend of the last five years. Graphed above are the annual migration figures for:
- Permanent and Long-Term Departures from NZ
- Permanent and Long-Term Departures from NZ of NZ Citizens
- Net Permanent and Long-Term Departures from NZ of NZ Citizen (departures less those returninh home)
I have not included a graph for Net Permanent and Long-Term Departures from NZ as inwards migration iof non citizens is determined by Government policy and can be adjusted to any level desired as first world countries always have massive immigration supply available.
Overall PLT departures have reached 81,788 – a record high since the current data series began in 1985. This is equal to 1,569 departures a week or 224 a day.
If one excludes non citizens, then PLT departures are at 59,132 which is 1,134 a week or 162 a day.
Now if one takes into account the number of NZ citizens returning home, then the net PLT departures of citizens is 35,859. Five years ago it was only 10,000.
So in annual terms, what cities are equal to our population loss:
- The net PLT loss of citizens annually is equal to losing Gisborne every year
- The gross PLT loss of citizens annually is equal to losing Nelson every year
- The gross PLT loss of residents annually is equal to losing Palmerston North every year
And what has been the total population loss of the last five years:
- The net PLT loss of citizens over the last five years is equal to losing Dunedin
- The gross PLT loss of citizens over the last five years is equal to losing Hamilton & Palmerston North.
- The gross PLT loss of residents over the last five years is equal to almost losing Christchurch.
Inwards migration of new New Zealanders (which is a great thing) helps keep the overall population stable, but that does not mean there isn’t a serious problem with the numbers leaving.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:28 am
Certainly would be interesting to know the reason for the inward migration back to this high-tax PC hellhole…
disclaimer: yes emmigration is bad
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:40 am
Nicely understated, DPF……..
Stephen, of course a certain percentage of people emigrating will miss the family ties, things might not work out for them where they go………..
What doesn’t need to be asked, of course, is why people are going…….the question that needs to be asked is, why the Socialists don’t care. My answer is, that it reduces the number of people who would have voted them out. Power is everything as we continue on down the “Chavismo” route to joining the third world.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 am
“The gross PLT loss of residents annually is equal to losing Palmerston North every year ”
Can they take the place with them when they leave please?
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
stephen: I am one of those people that has returned (with my partner) to this high-tax PC hellhole. The reason for my return is to be close to my 70 year old parents, my nieces, nephews, and siblings. I was finally convinced that it was a good time to return because I believe that Labour will lose the next election. I left partly due to the Labour party policies (though there were other reasons as well). I hope that answers your question.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
Stephen, I’m only here because my ex-wife won’t let me take my kids away with me.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Thanks all.
Philbest, it was recently in the news that out of 500,000 overseas NZers able to vote, only 28,000 decided to do so. So dunno where you get that idea about the government wanting people to leave – another question should be ‘why don’t they (the overseas voters) care’? Some don’t think they’re eligible, apparently.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
How many of us are in that situation bearhunter? Condemned to Helengrad.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Nefarious – In seven years my boy turns 18 and will be able to make his own mind up. Then I’m off. But seven more years…I’d get less for manslaughter.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
Not like the good old days in the ’90s when no one could afford the costs of moving to a different country, and everyone was stuck here.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
So what the hell was going on in 2000?
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Note too that according to Te Puni Kokori that there were 120,000 Maori resident in Australia. That’s about 20% of those claiming Maori ancestry or about 31% of those registered on the 2006 Maori Roll. That compares with about 500,000 of the general population living overseas or 12% of our total population. So Maori are departing at something like twice the rate of the general population.
This is counter intuitive to the mantra that we have White Flight and export of only our brightest and most educated. Reasons for leaving include getting a job, a better job, more pay, better climate, less racism and fewer whanua clinging on. If we look at the other groupings shooting through I suspect we’ll find the Maori pattern repeating, ie, we are not exporting some sort of elete but ordinary families on average incomes or less, average education etc.
I’d suggest that this is our own dirty little secret. Once politicians could excuse this flight as the “Big OE” with the implication that our bright young things would come back and add greatly to our society and productivity, but now it’s pretty obvious that ordinary families have given up on NZ and are moving permanently. There go our tradespeople, general workers, our kids, volunteers, clerical workers and carers to go with our “best and brightest”.
It follows that NZ is becoming more bland, smug, less productive and introverted as the govt “churns taxes back to it’s own tribe of elitist drones. One thing is for sure, this govt no longer represents the workers.
JC
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
So, percentage wise nothing has changed? or minimal change?
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Anecdotally … my family has a few rental properties in Newtown, near Wellington hospital. Most of the tenants work at the hospital – mainly nurses, technicians and IT, the occasional doctor. Most are immigrants from the UK or Africa. The predominant pattern is that they stay a couple of years (as our tenants), then leave for Australia. Some of the UK folk go back to the UK. It’s the revolving door …
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I have no idea what trend this would show but a more meaningful statistic would be to look at departures as a percentage of population. The problem is that even if the rate of departures stayed constant over the five years the graph of raw numbers of people leaving would always trend upwards because of population growth.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“Now if one takes into account the number of NZ citizens returning home, then the net PLT departures of citizens is 35,859. Five years ago it was only 10,000.”
Translation: Helen’s reign is offensive to 3.5 times as many people today as it was 5 years ago.
http://www.kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
David, do you have a view about what element(s) of National’s immigration policy will impact on emigration? You’ll think I’m being very partisan, but I can’t see anything that is intended or likely to directly impact on PLT departures.
[DPF: An immigration policy tends to only affect immigration not emigration. You can’t stop people emigrating. The economic policy is more likely to impact on PLT departures and/or NZers returning.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Innocent bystander, the emmigration numbers are the highest since 1979 – i’d imagine the percentage of population differences are quite large.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I note that a persistent criticism of this sort of analysis is that immigration offsets emigration. To me, and I’m someone who really values the special talents and cultural diversity that incoming populations bring with them, this is like saying of an estuary that because levels remain constant, an immense rise in salt versus fresh water has no significance. It may not to geographers but certainly does to the lifeforms that swim in it.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
francis, cut to the chase?
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I agree to a point, of course, which is why billboard promising no more tearful airport goodbyes was so ridiculous. In fact there are things that can be done to encourage people to return, but so far neither parties really done anything in this regard which surprises me.
I agree with this too, up to a point. Sure the lure of wage benefits is a factor, but so is just the desire to see the world. No amount of economic activity is ever going to stop young kiwis from wanting to see Covent Garden or Wall Street. Weather’s a factor too. There’s no quick fix or silver bullet and National ought to stop pretending its a matter over which they have much control.
[DPF: A few years ago Paul I would have agreed most people leaving is about the OE or warmer climates. But in the last couple of years especially more and more people seem to be citing the higher income you get in Australia especially.
There will always be significant migration from NZ. But it would be nice to reverse the trend where it has been growing for the last five years]
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Paul Williams: removing the nanny state is certain to encourage people to return. Many of National’s policies (or politics) will do that. With Labour it won’t happen – we will keep the nanny state and it may get worse.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I’m one who has returned after about 30 years in OZ. Taxing isn’t an issue for me. For my particular circumstances I find I’m paying less. Significantly. But I do still earn the bulk of my income out of Australia and therein is the real problem. Unskilled temp labourers can $25+ and hour.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I guess that’s what they’re hoping and, in my opinion, falsely implying. What evidence do you have for your assertions? The only analysis I’ve seen suggests there’s many exogenous factors hence my comment earlier. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see skilled and ambitious kiwis stay in or return to NZ but I don’t see anything in National’s policies that’ll do it…
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
# stephen (1658) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 1 Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 am
“Thanks all.
Philbest, it was recently in the news that out of 500,000 overseas NZers able to vote, only 28,000 decided to do so. So dunno where you get that idea about the government wanting people to leave – another question should be ‘why don’t they (the overseas voters) care’? Some don’t think they’re eligible, apparently.”
Yes, that is a strange phenomenon, I half wonder whether there is some kind of perverse psychology at work here, where they WANT their move overseas to be justified, they’d actually feel a bit pissed off if things improved back home so that their emigrating looked like a waste of effort…….. is that a bit of a long shot suspicion? Perhaps, too, they’re too busy doing what they emigrated for, to care……
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I find it interesting that immigration and emigration are BOTH increasing. Kinda debunks any mass-exodus-of-real-ie-white-NZers-fleeing-Liarbour theory.
(of course I’m also appalled by the cherry-picking of 2003 as the start year, but I didn’t really expect any better from here)
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Philbest, yeah longshot. I linked to a campaign trying to ‘get out the vote’ this time round, and it sounds like they’re having some succss. The Greens do their bit too (albeit in a partisan way) – if they can do it, surely parties with more resources can do the same.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Thanks for bringing this up. It is a real worry.
2000 years of coal in the ground, and all we can do is fiddle with snails and try to ban it. From memory only 8% of NZers think that coal should play a larger role in our energy production.
We are so ruled by environmentalists we almost deserve to go under as a lesson to future civilisations. We are to Australia what South America is to North.
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:06 am
Looks like New Zealand’s education system can’t be all bad if there are 80,000 New Zealanders realising the country is stuffed and migrating to one of the many countries out there that just happens to be better than New Zealand.
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:37 am
Of the 500,000 who are eligible to vote, there are only 28,000 who have registered to vote – why?
472,000 ex-NZ’rs have decided they don’t give a fuck. They left for a reason and dont intend returning anytime soon. Most of whom take a passing interest in the AllBlacks or a NZ nature documentary and thats about it.
Thanks Labour for causing the biggest mass migration of intellectual capital known in the OECD in the past 20 years – even MORE than Ireland and they had a civil war.
Fuck you Labour.
Fuck you very much.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:13 am
There hasn’t been a net loss of 500,000 under Labour though – many have returned too, so a little simplistic to use that number. The biggest migration as a % seems to have been 1979 – THAT would’ve been a MASSIVE worry.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
Labour is delighted that well educated, and motivated folks are leaving in droves.
They would generally vote National or similar.
Why? Because they are well educated and motivated!
More telling is the number of Immigrants allowed in under the Investor Category over the last ten years.
(DPF, please can you do some research under OIA about the gross inflow by month under this category?)
It occurs to me that Health Professionals are understandably allowed a fast track. There will also be many other sensible skills shortages that are addressed within the Dept. of Labour.
However wealth creators are actually scorned. Why? because they might vote National/Act
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
But the people leaving can vote.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
that graph would make a great billboard.