Clappy

The 132200 arrivals were over 12 months while the figure for GDP per capita growth of 0.3% was just over 3 months. The GDP per capita growth over 12 months was 0.6% which is still disappointing.

Among all those numbers I see that the 132200 arrivals in the year (up 6%) while the departures were 60100 (up 8%), so the number leaving is going up faster than the number arriving.

Should we have a sweepstake on how long it takes before the popular press is lamenting the number of people that are leaving?

Justcol

havent we been there already about 2 or 3 years ago when everyone was jumping ship to go and make their millions in OZ...boooo

then they all started coming back...yaaay

now they are all leaving again...boooo

Timmy Chch

But...the figure also includes young persons working holiday visa which I don't think should be included in the stats. Freedom camping on a shoestring other than petrol costs don't add much to GDP. Going off airport arrival/departure cards only for these stats is guaranteed to be a guestimate at best as recently proved.

Charismatic

Should we let this thread die now or keep a candle on how Jazzy/Winnie actually do?

Clappy

I think it is interesting to see how these things play out so we should keep watching.

While some of the people that will form the new Government have pledged to reduce immigration, companies at the moment seem to be struggling to hire employees.

Is it too soon to hope that wages might start to rise now?

Charismatic

Unlikely anytime soon, unemployment is a terrible measure of slack in the labour market. In fact it's actually a lie. I'd suggest companies should have no problem finding employees if they are offering a level of remuneration that is commensurate to the skills and experience they are seeking or are willing to offer training.

It'll likely take government a while to act, while they don't actually need to enact anything as such they do need to have a coherent approach that can be implemented by the responsible ministries. Also these policies are very unlikely to be applied retrospectively so if your application has already been approved your likely safe.

It looks like student visas for "low value" courses will be trimmed along with the subsequent "work visa" they currently enjoy (even w/o actual work ), unskilled migrants will likely go, occupations will likely be regionalised, it looks like "family reunion" will be substantially curtailed but by far the largest change will likely be a much higher bar on occupation.

I expect a few in business will fight this tooth and nail as their business model is reliant on low cost imported labour. You may recall National proposed a few of these changes and ended up being swayed by the business lobby to back-track.

paddy234

In terms of immigration New Zealand can't have a one size fits all system, it needs to split immigration rules in regions. Auckland is really the only place that migration has become too much. Here in Christchurch there are companies crying out for workers with so much still to do and i'd say it will take 10 to 15 years or more before one could say the city is rebuilt to a satisfactory level. Queenstown is booming in construction aswell and again most tradies are from overseas. Also so many regions are losing population and wealth to the cities so have a migration system that would encourage growth to the declining regions. Auckland isn't New Zealand and too many kiwis want to shut down migration with the hope of rising wages. I tell you this it was migrants who raised the wages here in Christchurch as Irish and UK tradies would never have been attracted to the $22 an hour wage that many qualified kiwi roofers, carpenters etc were getting before the earthquake, now many expect around the $30 mark because employers had to raise the bar to entice migrants.

Charismatic

I see Jazzy's policy changes to foreign buyers and immigration have made it the BBC News front page.

Justcol

Jacinda Blair. . .!!

chocolate cake

I'd suspect that would be quite easy to achieve if as expected long term outflow to Aussie returns to the norm.
It's not immigration per se, it's the quality of it and destination, Auckland's infrastructure can hardily take any more.

Charismatic

Auckland infrastructure will just have to wait. New record again this month.

Bo-Jangles

Sounds like Mr Twyford might need to have another squizz at the KiwiBuild budget - those 27 houses per day aren't really going to help much.

Charismatic

No chance, the way I figure it they either need to build approx. 3 time more houses or cut net migration by a two thirds to balance supply and demand on this single source. That said we have yet to see what their immigration policy will look like in practice.

Justcol

It will quite possibly look just like the one National left behind

Moses2013

Increasing wages for tradies doesn't help though and that just creates more problems, especially in Christchurch. While tradies might be getting more money now, you also need other industries that can match those wages. You won't be able to attract new business unless office buildings/homes are affordable for others.