Recent figures show that New Zealand’s annual net-migration gain once again hit record levels last month.
According to Statistics New Zealand data released earlier this week, the annual net gain of migrants hit 67,400 in the year to the end of February, making it the 19th consecutive month to show a record annual net gain.
Migrant arrivals reached a new high of 124,300 during this period, while departures fell slightly to 56,900. Over half of these arrivals settled in Auckland.
The number of people entering the country on work visas jumped by 4,700 to 38,600, led by those coming from the UK, France, Germany and Australia.
Students made up 23 per cent (approximately 28,000) of all migrant arrivals, with many of them arriving from India (10,100), China (5,800) and the Philippines (2,300).
And according to Dominick Stephens, a chief economist at Westpac Bank, more net migration records are likely to be broken over the coming months. “Net migration has gone from strength to strength over the past few years, consistently defying the most bullish of forecasts,” he said. “It now looks highly likely that annual net migration will surpass 70,000 by June, taking the population growth rate to a post-1974 high of 2.1 per cent.
Article by David Fuller