Brad Olsen: Infometrics chief executive on the reports claiming the 'brain drain' could be slowing down

There's signs the brain drain could be slowing, according to new reports.

A total of 67,800 citizens left the country in the year to November 2025, many for Australia - for a net loss topping 40,000.

In the year to the November before, the net migration loss of Kiwis reached almost 44,000.

Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen says most trends have plateaued.

"Instead of seeing huge numbers of Kiwis that have continued to move out - yes, they're still high, but they're not continuing to increase." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the brain drain numbers. So these are
migration stats out looks like the worst of it might
be over migration stats out for the year to November.
The rate of Kiwi citizens leaving the country has fallen
since June, and we had a small net population gain
of about ten thousand for the year to November. Brad
Olsen is infametrics principle economists with us tonight, Brad, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good evening, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
So we're not all moving to Australia anymore, is that
what we're saying?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
What are we saying? Well, I think you're exactly right
that we've seen most of the trends effectively plateau. So
you know, instead of seeing huge numbers of Kiwis that
have continued to move out, yes they're still high, but
they're not continuing to increase. They're sort of now moving
a bit more sideways. And even you look at those
figures of Kiwis moving to Australia and sort of the

(00:45):
overall net gain there that does seem to be again
easing back, just ever so slightly in recent times. Long
story short, probably the most interesting thing with these figures
is not only the headline figured, like you say, roughly
ten thousand the net migration figure over the last twelve months,
but also the revisions in terms of people coming into
the country as well, the arrival figures and departures have

(01:08):
both been revised lower in November compared to what we
had previously, and it just sort of in our minds
when we look through those figures, just suggests that there's
not quite as much intensity in terms of both the
number of people still coming in, which was always hard
to understand when you looked at the likes of the
higher unemployment rate, but also, like you say, not quite
as many people leaving as we might have first expected.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
So has the whole thing been a bit overhyped?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, I mean, in a sense we're still yet to
see fully even the most recent figures are still quite volatile,
and you do see those revisions come through quite a bit.
But now we're sort of getting a little bit more
certainty around the data for what happens sort of more
mid twenty twenty five, and that certainly suggests that again
some of those primary expectations might have been a bit overhyped,
and part of it seems to be when you dig

(01:55):
into the figures it's sort of hard to tell when
someone leaves the country if they're going to be a
migro or if they're just going on holiday and maybe
a longer holiday. And I dare expect that when you
look in some of the figures, it might well have
been that there were a few more Kiwis that were
taking trips to Australia. But it also might have been
that people have been looking overseas at jobs. They might
have moved figured out that actually there's not as many

(02:15):
sort of just heaps of spare jobs overseas compared to
New Zealand, and actually might well have had to come back.
You've been hearing more anecdotes of that recently as well,
so there's a combination of things. But it does seem like, look,
the migration figures do seem to be trending out a
bit more at where they currently are, rather than dipping
up or dipping down particularly quickly interesting stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Brad appreciated brad Elson inf Metrics. Good to have you
on the show. As always. For more from Heather Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from
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