Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large on the new stats revealing how many Kiwis left the country

The number of people leaving the country long-term hit another new record in the year to January - but monthly data suggests the brain drain has peaked.

Stats NZ provisional data for the January 2025 year (compared with January 2024) showed migrant departures up 18 percent to 122,800, the highest on record for an annual period.

Migrant arrivals, at 155,300 were down, 31 percent for the year.

NZ Herald business editor at large, Liam Dann, explains what this means for the New Zealand economy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the brain, the great brain drain that we keep

(00:02):
harping on about migrant departures have reached a new record.
Just hive one hundred and twenty three thousand. This is
for the year to January new numbers out. That's up
eighteen percent. But there is some sense that we might
have hit peak brain drain, which is good. Liam dan
is the Herald's business editor at larges with me now
highlym Koday Ryan. So what are we seeing in these numbers.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, there's a lot of numbers there, and you can
sort of pick and cheers a bit because the annual
stats are going to keep looking pretty rough for a
while because they're catching those that the peak of the
brain drain last year. But what we can see is
that if you look at I guess what we're talking
about here is Kiwi citizens leaving long term, right, and

(00:45):
so the Kiwi departures have sort of plateau. They're in
the year to January twenty twenty five, they were forty
four seven hundred, and that compares to sorry sorry, forty
four thousand, two hundred compared to forty four thousand, seven
hundred for the year to January twenty twenty four and

(01:07):
then sort of what you can see is that in
the year to August twenty twenty four was when they peaked,
we had forty seven thousand, So nearly fifty thousand people
left in that year to August, and so they're drifting back.
Forty four thousand kiwis leaving is still a heck of
a lot, you know. So there's no sense that we're
saying that the brain drain is over or cured. But

(01:31):
the peak is an important thing to get beyond because
it possibly suggests that the trend has started moving in
the right direction and that there's you know, perhaps less
push for Kiwis to get out there, and so you know,
hopefully that's part of the recovery story, right.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well hopefully. I was going to ask, does that mean
that it's a sign that kiwis are saying where our
prospects are looking better here? Or is it just that
we've run out of mobile brains to actually you know,
up and leave.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Look, it's possible. Look, we don't the stats don't dig
down into who exactly is leaving. We get a little
bit of age based stuff, but that takes a while
to come through. Yeah, it's and overall net migration is
still still positive. So we're still gaining thirty two thousand,

(02:23):
five hundred people I think in the year to January,
but that's down from one hundred and something like one
hundred and thirty two one hundred and fifty five thousand
or something. You know, we had this enormous peak, and
so just having that net migration gain of thirty two
thousand is enough to sort of create a bit of
a head when the economy is used to having a
lot more people coming in. And I'm hearing economists talk

(02:46):
about how that's one of the reasons that the housing
market's just not picking up as fast as you might
have expected with interest rates coming off, that we're sort
of built in the last year or two for this
high level of incoming migration or lower levels of people leaving,
and you know, we're sort of feeling that now. But yeah,

(03:06):
as I say, the trend possibly starting to turn, and
let's hope, you know, if they can, if we can
see the economy continue to improve, it usually is fairly
related to the economy.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, and because I noticed that IMF report yesterday, they
said that it would be you know, our recovery this
year would be in part lad by migration. I mean,
are they taking into account the fact that, you know,
net migration is relatively low compared to where we normally
have it. Presumably they are.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, I mean I think they're talking. I mean, in
the end, it's going to you know, you change a
few settings at some point that the lower level of
net migration will start to cause labor shortages and then
inevitably a government tries to open things up again. We're
really all sitting there waiting for the labor market to

(03:52):
work through the worst of its you know, unemployment and
get some jobs creating again. So that's not looking like
it's happening till the second half of the year. But
when that starts to happen, you'd expect to see migration
pick up as well, a fewer people leaving because of
his jobs. So so much of it's tied to jobs,
and as we've talked about before, it's just taking it

(04:13):
takes a bit longer. Once the first sort of economic
stats start looking a bit better, it still takes a
while for the labor market to turn around.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yep, nice one, Liam, thank you for that great information.
Liam dan As always insied Herold business editsor at Large.
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