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This year could see the highest level of net emigration in a decade (Getty Images).
This year could see the highest level of net emigration in a decade (Getty Images).

The BulletinMarch 29, 2022

The brain drain returns

Contributing writer
This year could see the highest level of net emigration in a decade (Getty Images).
This year could see the highest level of net emigration in a decade (Getty Images).

Kiwibank warns of the highest level of emigration in a decade as New Zealanders face high costs at home and opportunities abroad, Justin Giovannetti writes in The Bulletin.

Heading for the exit as restrictions fall.

There have been few weekends since Christmas where I haven’t spoken with friends preparing to leave New Zealand. What was once a series of anecdotes is now backed by a growing volume of data. Kiwibank is predicting that 20,000 more people will leave New Zealand this year than arrive. Stuff reports that would be the greatest period of emigration since the Australian mining boom of 2011. Aotearoa’s pre-Covid immigration surge has been in reverse for most of the last 12 months, with the Customs Service counting more departures than arrivals at the border. Since December, the trickle of departures has picked up momentum. It isn’t a flood, but it’s disquietingly large.

What’s driving the busy departures lounge.

New Zealand has a tight labour market, record low unemployment and a clean green image around the world. The border is rapidly opening to new arrivals. The country also has comparatively low salaries, a high cost-of-living, breathtakingly expensive houses and sometimes limited opportunities. Little of this is new. It’s hard to predict what exactly will happen in the coming months. Will workers be enticed to leave for better wages and opportunities? Will long-delayed OEs attract people overseas? Will recently arrived immigrants, after two years of pandemic purgatory, leave to be closer to friends and family? The answer to all is likely yes. Some young New Zealanders told RNZ why they decided to leave.

Listen to Coming Home, a podcast about the brain gain we saw in Aotearoa in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic

Convincing long delayed migrants to come.

The other side of the equation is that some people will come the other way and make a home in New Zealand. I asked the prime minister yesterday how she intends to respond to Kiwibank’s prediction. She said immigration officials will be prioritising working holiday visas for young travellers who have already expressed an interest in coming to New Zealand. That’ll help the country’s tourism operators, but not the large skills gaps in medicine, construction and virtually every skilled industry. The NZ Herald (paywalled) has looked at the links between immigration and the country’s worker shortages.

There’s a global war for talent and New Zealand needs to step up.

Interest explains that New Zealand is now competing with the likes of Australia and Canada for skilled workers and it needs to work harder. While Canada set its all-time immigration record last year and has increased this year’s target to even higher levels, officials in New Zealand are looking at a wide immigration reboot. The Productivity Commission is expected to finalise a report next month that considers migration levels going forward. However Aotearoa isn’t just competing for immigrants, its also a target. The NZ Herald (paywalled) reports that international recruiters are now eyeing workers here, with offers of higher salaries and cheaper homes.

Some young people leaving might eventually be a good thing.

It might not be a brain drain, but a boomerang. Stuff reports that many people, leaving on OE or for work overseas, will eventually return home with new skills. Kiwibank is predicting that net emigration should be short-lived, with arrivals outpacing departures by next year. It’ll be important for New Zealand companies to recognise the value of the international experience from returnees and new arrivals. Stuff has written about the incredible struggle migrant doctors face. This is also one of the complaints I’ve heard from people considering leaving New Zealand in recent months: the trouble convincing employers to recognise foreign work. “Sure, you’ve handled marketing campaigns in New York and Chicago, but what do you know about Hamilton?” a New Zealander told me about an unsuccessful interview in Auckland. “The foreign experience was seen as a detriment.” They’ve since left for Toronto.

 

Keep going!
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

The BulletinMarch 28, 2022

Two years after lockdown

Contributing writer
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Since the country first went into level four, New Zealand and the world has changed in ways both big and small. It’s now Covid World, Justin Giovannetti writes in The Bulletin.

How New Zealand changed since we first locked down.

New Zealanders woke up on March 26, 2020 to a country in lockdown for the first time. Roads were empty, the prime minister asked people to “be kind” and you were. There was an optimism that after one bout of level four, future waves could be avoided. Looking back at The Spinoff’s live updates from that day, you can sense the country’s apprehension and tenacity. We now find ourselves in a much different position. Our third major wave of Covid peaked last week, but over 10,000 omicron cases are still being detected daily. Covid is now with us, likely for a very long time. 1News looked at the two years since that first day of lockdown.

It’s a question of fairness.

I was struck by The Bulletin that came out on March 26, 2020. Alex Braae wrote that the national emergency raised a series of questions of fairness. Two years later, his warnings ring louder than ever. The pandemic would, he wrote, raise issues for employees facing a demand to keep working despite the pandemic. It would put consumers in a difficult spot as supermarket chains raised prices on pretty much everything. It would also cause homeowners and tenants to be direct competition. While he couldn’t have predicted the scope of pandemic restrictions or a future where hundreds of thousands would stay home because they or a family member was sick, each of those warnings came to pass. The Sunday Star-Times wrote yesterday that the cost of living crisis has now reached a point where no hacks are left for low-income households. Even if they cut back on all the expenses they can, the costs of basics alone mean they are falling behind.

Tourists are almost back, but businesses face challenges.

The narrative about reopening isn’t as straightforward as it once seemed. Hayden Donnell reported in Mediawatch that despite looser Covid restrictions, businesses aren’t doing better. After two years of calling for a damn the torpedoes approach to Covid, businesses are getting it. The resulting increase in personal responsibility has revealed an unexpected response. It shouldn’t have. It isn’t government restrictions making people stay home, it’s Covid. That extends beyond New Zealand’s border. While some international tourists will return within the coming months, most are years away, Stuff reports. China remains closed, everyone else is very far away, during a pandemic when flight schedules are still unreliable and catching the virus remains a worry. There’s also a war on.

An orange light is flashing over the rest of the economy.

The mother of all housing booms is over. Prices fell in 154 suburbs across the country over the past three months, Miriam Bell wrote for Stuff. After growing through lockdowns and new variants of Covid, the housing market has reached a turning point and could drop by as much as 10% this year. Southern farmers are also facing a series of problems, with droughts, staff shortages and omicron outbreaks through the supply chain. It’s a “perfect storm” according to 1News. Meat plants are operating below capacity, some at only half of output.

What the future holds for Aotearoa.

Siouxsie Wiles has written in The Spinoff about what comes next. She remains nervous and disappointed with the government’s decision to bring down restrictions. It’s telling that Wiles now sees Covid through the same lens as HIV. Not the flu. There will be treatments and vaccines to reduce the severity of infections, but many around the world won’t get easy access to them. There will be no return to the pre-Covid world of 2019. Wiles concludes, correctly from my vantage in the press gallery, that the government’s goal now is to keep hospitalisations at a manageable level with the least number of restrictions. That’s very different from the approach of two years ago.

It’s unclear if the government could return the country to that approach again. There’s been commentary in recent days about just how different the prime minister’s recent speeches have been to what they once were. Labour’s most ardent supporters would admit that what was once a masterclass in communication is now clearly not. But why? Writing in Stuff, Janet Wilson has compared the prime minister’s speeches from 2020 and 2022. While Wilson has past connections with National, she’s a PR expert and it’s hard to argue with her conclusions.