'Brain drain' fear as record numbers leave New Zealand

Record numbers of people are leaving New Zealand as the cost of living crisis is being compounded by limited job opportunities.

In a "significant exodus", the year to April 2024 saw a net migration loss of 56,500 citizens, up 12,000 from the previous record, said Firstpost. With fewer people arriving in New Zealand, there are fears of a brain drain and skills shortage.

'Grim picture'

Many young New Zealanders opt to go travelling overseas and the recent surge in the number of people leaving the country can partly be explained by a backlog caused by people delaying their plans due to the Covid pandemic.

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But although this sort of travelling is considered a "rite of passage", much of the "record flow" is due to the "growing attraction" of working in Australia, said The Guardian. And experts worry that a "grim economic picture" means "departing Kiwis" may never come back.

With New Zealand experiencing a second recession in less than two years, employers in neighbouring Australia are trying to lure New Zealanders with offers of higher pay and better working conditions.

Half of the New Zealanders who left recently have moved to Australia. Brad Olsen, principal economist at Infometrics, said this "suggests a greater number of people and families are looking for opportunities and making a more permanent move".

'Goodbye dinners'

Kirsty Frame said she left New Zealand in 2023 aged 24 after it "just felt like bad news after bad news" in the country. She had already noticed the growth in departures, remembering that "it was goodbye dinner after goodbye dinner, leaving drinks after leaving drinks".

After arriving in Melbourne she found a higher-paying job and a flat with lower rent. She "could be happy here for a long time", she told The Guardian, and she thinks she will be there "for the long run".

Maia Vieregg, a 26-year-old geologist, has found the transition harder. 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 couple of hours north of Sydney but she's finding Australia difficult to adjust to, as she finds it more materialistic than New Zealand, which is "a quite down-to-earth place". She plans to return home at some stage.

But as New Zealand languishes in recession, the exodus could continue. Tehseen Islam, Stats NZ's population indicators manager, said that "changes in migration are typically due to a combination of factors" including the "relative economic and labour market conditions between New Zealand and the rest of the world".

Meanwhile, there are fewer people arriving. Although the net migration gain in New Zealand remains "historically high", it "shows a declining trend", said Firstpost. In the year to April 2024, New Zealand gained 98,500 migrants, down from 106,000 in the year to March.

More people leaving and fewer arriving: these twin trends could worsen New Zealand's skill shortage, David Cooper, director of immigration firm Malcolm Pacific, told The Guardian.

The record numbers of Kiwis leaving "are not the desperate and dateless". They're "young, skilled people" and "it's hard to attract the highly skilled people we need to replace the ones leaving".