WELLINGTON: New Zealand migration hit a new annual record in March, as more students arrived from India and China and fewer locals left for Australia.
The country had a net gain of 56,275 migrants in the year through March, 75 percent higher than the 31,914 gain in the year earlier period, Statistics New Zealand said. Migrant arrivals were 16 percent ahead of the year earlier period, while departures declined 13 percent, the agency said.
New Zealand annual migration has broken records for an eighth consecutive month as the nation’s economic prospects appear brighter than in many other countries.
That’s helping stoke economic activity, pushing up demand for housing and cars while also reducing pressure on wage inflation by boosting the supply of labour.
“There was nothing in today’s data to change our view that annual net immigration will approach 60,000 later this year,” Westpac Banking Corp senior economist Felix Delbruck said in a note. “New Zealand’s construction-fuelled economic upturn is continuing to draw in foreign workers in historically very large numbers. And the inflow of international students remains high.
“These supportive factors won’t last forever, but they are unlikely to weaken seriously any time soon. We expect population growth – already the fastest since 2003 – to accelerate further this year, to just under 2 percent, and remain high into 2016.
That is good news from the point of view of economic growth and will also help alleviate labour market pressures, but it also means that Auckland’s housing squeeze is likely to get worse before it gets better.”
The decline in migrant departures reflects fewer people leaving for Australia, where the economic prospects are weaker following a slowdown in the mining industry.
New Zealand had a net loss of 2,300 people to Australia in the year through March, compared with a loss of 2,500 people in the year earlier period. That’s the smallest net loss to Australia since the March 1992 year when 2,300 more people left than arrived.
