Record numbers of people are leaving New Zealand as the cost of living is exacerbated by limited employment opportunities.
In a “significant exodus”, there was a net migration loss of 56,500 citizens in the year to April 2024, an increase of 12,000 on the previous record, Firstpost said. With fewer people arriving in New Zealand, there are fears of a brain drain and skills shortage.
‘Grim image’
Many young New Zealanders are choosing to travel abroad and the recent increase in the number of people leaving the country can be partly explained by a backlog caused by people postponing their plans due to the Covid pandemic.
But while this type of travel is considered a “rite of passage”, much of the “record flow” is due to the “growing appeal” of working in Australia, according to The Guardian. And experts worry a “grimly economic picture” means “departing Kiwis” may never return.
As New Zealand faces its second recession in less than two years, employers in neighboring Australia are trying to lure New Zealanders with offers of higher wages and better working conditions.
Half of New Zealanders who have recently left have moved to Australia. Brad Olsen, chief economist at Infometrics, said this “suggests that a greater number of people and families are looking for opportunity and making a more permanent move.”
‘Farewell dinners’
Kirsty Frame said she left New Zealand in 2023 at the age of 24 after it “just felt like bad news after bad news” in the country. She had already noticed the growth in departures and remembered that “it was farewell dinner after farewell dinner, leaving drinks after leaving drinks.”
After arriving in Melbourne, she found a better-paying job and a flat with lower rent. She “could be happy here for a very long time,” she told The Guardian, and she thinks she will be there “for the long term.”
Maia Vieregg, a 26-year-old geologist, has found the transition more difficult. She left New Zealand after becoming “cynical and hopeless” about its future as she struggled to find work and the progressive government lost power.
She found a well-paying job a few hours north of Sydney, but she finds it difficult to get used to Australia because she finds it more materialistic than New Zealand, which is “a pretty down-to-earth place”. She plans to return home at some point.
But with New Zealand languishing in recession, the exodus could continue. Tehseen Islam, Stats NZ’s population indicators manager, said “changes in migration are generally due to a combination of factors”, including the “relative economic and labor market conditions between New Zealand and the rest of the world”.
Meanwhile, fewer people are arriving. While New Zealand’s net migration gain remains “historically high”, it “shows a downward trend”, according to Firstpost. In the year to April 2024, New Zealand received 98,500 migrants, down from 106,000 in the year to March.
More people leaving and fewer arriving: these two trends could worsen New Zealand’s skills shortage, David Cooper, director of immigration firm Malcolm Pacific, told The Guardian.
The record numbers of Kiwis leaving “are not the desperate and the undated”. They are “young, skilled people” and “it is difficult to attract the highly qualified people we need to replace those who leave”.
