Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large on the exodus of 25 to 45-year-olds leaving New Zealand

Over 70,000 Kiwis left the country last year - and there's a changing trend in the types of people departing.

The OE is a classic experience for many young New Zealanders, but new data shows there's a higher cohort of skilled professionals aged 25 to 45 leaving in droves.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann says these people have been educated here - and have been pushed to find employment and economic opportunities overseas.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're joined by Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor
at Large. So, as part of your Inside Economics column
in the New Zealand Heralds, you've done some digging into
the migrant numbers and a figure there that is of
relative concern is the age group of twenty five to
forty six year old appearing to be leaving the country

(00:37):
in significant numbers at the moment.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
So the stems from on Tuesday, I think it was,
we got the numbers from statsn Z for Kiwi's leaving
you know, migration data, and it showed they had they
highlighted some age statistics that showed a lot of young
people leaving. You know, the peak age for New Zealanders
leaving the country is twenty five. And I put that

(01:00):
in the headline and that was the story. But then
I did a bit more digging and kind of realized
that those numbers, while they are at you know, a
high number, are always pretty high, so that the variance
isn't that much. If you go back to twenty eleven,
you know, people are going on their oe at that time.
So how to look at the other numbers from the
ages of from about twenty five on through to about

(01:21):
forty six, that's where the numbers are at record levels
and are much higher than they were in previous years.
And that concerns me a bit because those are people
that aren't probably going for an oe adventurous sort of
trip around Southeast Asia and then wash up in London
and work in a pub. Those are people who are
skilled people who have been educated here and are leaving

(01:42):
because they need better work opportunities and economic opportunities.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
And that's not great from a crown revenue perspective, is
it that particular cohort of New Zealander is leaving.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
No, Well, they are bigger, they earn more tag we
as we get older, we tend to pay earn more
and pay more tax, so you can see why that's
digging a bit of a hole in the crown revenue.
So yep, but we've still got a net migration gain,
which means that there are still some Keiwis coming home
and migrants coming into the country. But that's dropping away

(02:12):
really fast. But also it's harder to get the you know,
the skills mixed there. The government's talked a lot about,
you know, really trying to up the openness of New
Zealand to skilled migrants because we're you know, in dire
need of engineers and doctors and all those sort of people.
But it sounds like we are losing a lot right now.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
Well, people in their thirties and forties tend to more
likely to have children as well, and so you move
your children over to another country, they start going to
an Australian school that get Australian accents, and what you've
got some Australians as opposed to the normal thing that
I think a lot of us did. We went overseas
and then got pregnant and then came back because we
thought this was the place to bring up our kids.

(02:53):
But all of a sudden, you've got Australian kids and
they're going to Australian and schools or English or wherever
you go, and then you've got serious roots in that
country that's going to make it less likely to come home.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
And yeah, I think if you're going in your mid
mid or early forties, you're probably going because you've got
something lined up, you know. So the opportunity is there.
You don't sort of just yeah, yeah, which you know, look,
look great. It's great that it's been a tradition and
still is a tradition. And you'd expect high numbers of
Kiwis heading off on the oe, the younger Kiwi's, you know,

(03:28):
because they were you know, stuck here for four years
with um and dad and all that sort of stuff
through COVID, and so it makes sense there was a
bulge there. But look, I know that, you know, anecdotally,
we know that this is a problem, but it just
sort of confirms that it is real. I've had a
look at the comments online. There's a lot of debate

(03:48):
about what's driving it. I think for me, primarily it
would be the economics of it. Jobs, you know, unemployments,
rising wages, you know, higher wages, and so I think
economics is at the root of why people migrate. I
have noticed a lot of comments saying that New Zealand's
got too woke and all that sort of stuff too.
There's that sort of cultural debate, but I'm not sure
where you go around the world.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Yeah, we'll wait, wait to you land in Sydney.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Experience for exactly and money talks. Isn't it right? If
you're in that age cohort and you've got a particular
position which is quite high up, and you get off
at double your salary in Australia or further abroad, what
are you going to do? You're gonna have that conversation say,
is it worth up routing here, pulling the kids out
of school and sitting up shop in Australia.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
Well, I was in Memphis not so long ago, and
we were driving around these suburbs and we're pointing at
these mansions and that, and I asked that our driver,
you know, oh well, how much do you pay for those?
And he said it's insane, you can't afford them. That
that house was giant, looked like the White House. That's
five hundred thousand. So I mean house prices.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
If you can trade in the house in Auckland and
get a mention in Memphis, and you've got the skills
that Memphis wants. I don't know what country.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Music, but if you're going to go to America, you
just have to do it the right way. Don't walk
over the border, or else you'll have ice knocking on
your door and having you out.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, there is that as well, Liam, Thank you very much.
If you want to check out the column, it's Inside Economics.
It's on the New Zealand Herald and well worth a read.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
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