Paul Spoonley: Massey University Sociologist on the uptick in skilled Kiwi workers leaving the country

There's a big worry at the number of skilled New Zealanders flowing out of the country.

Latest figures from Stats NZ show more than 130,000 people left in the year to April - the highest on record.

A record 81,200 New Zealand citizens made up majority of the departures.

Massey University Sociologist Paul Spoonley says we're losing a lot of talented people - mainly young, recently graduated Kiwis.

"Right across the board: teachers, all our professionals are being recruited because they're actually good - and they're being recruited for other countries, particularly Australia."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yet again, yet again, the number of Kiwis leaving the
country has reached a record high. I don't know how
many records we can strike. In March we had the
previous record that was when seventy eight two hundred New
Zealand citizens left the country intending to stay away for
a year or more. And at that time we were like, Paul,
that's a high number. Well, eighty one thousand, two hundred
is the April figure that's been released today. Paul Spoonley

(00:23):
is a Massi University sociologist and with us now Hey.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Paul, yod Ay, Heather, Paul's scale of.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
One to ten. How worried to you about this?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Nine?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Really?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Nine? Yes? Yes? Two reasons One is that I thought
with a new government it would ease off. But this
is actually seven months of the new government and the
figures keep going out, so how much more can they
go up? The second is that we see our Western
bright is going We have the highest skilled diaspers so
people who are living in another country of any country

(00:56):
in the OECD, and we do that because our graduates
leave and typically the person who's leaving his Zealand is
between twenty and thirty and a university graduate and.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
What are the skills that we're losing.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
We're losing all of those. Well, we're losing a lot
of professionals. I mean, if you look at the people
that are being recruited for the Australian Health Service out
of our graduate out of our medical schools, we've got
to be seriously concerned. But of course you and I
know what are the police doing, the Australian Police doing
in terms of recruiting here, So right across the board, teachers,

(01:34):
all our professionals are being recruited because they are actually
good graduates, and they're being recruited for other countries, particularly Australia.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
What's it going to take for this number to come down?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, I think there's always push and pool factors, and
some of the pool factors, the fact that you can
get more money in Australia is always going to be
a pool factor, so that there's not a lot you
can do about that. Although some of our some of
our professions do need better recognition and do need better pay.
So how do we do that? I'm not entirely sure,
but we need to be internationally competitive. There are push

(02:10):
factors and that's what I'm a bit surprised at I
thought that, you know, with a new government things would
settle down, we wouldn't see this ongoing increase. So I'm
really surprised at that. I think we've got some incentives
which are really disincentives. We load up our graduates with
student dead and then we wonder why they go to

(02:32):
live in another country and don't come back. Well, of
course it's to avoid that debt. So can't we do something?
Couldn't we, for example, say, if Heather's disgraduated out of
medical school, couldn't she work in a rural New Zealand
for five years and then discount that debt that she's
accrued was training to be a Yeah, So I just

(02:53):
I think we're a bit dumb about some of us.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, okay, how many of these people? That's a note pool.
That's a really good idea, And I'm taking this on board.
I'm taking it. Not that I have any power over this,
but I'm absorbing what you're saying. How many of these
people who have left? Can we rely on coming back.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
On quite a few, because if you look at those
numbers you mentioned the eighty one thousand, two hundred that
have left, but actually the net loss is fifty six thousand,
so we've got twenty five thousand who come back. And
they come back typically when they're at a particular career point.
So they quite often go overseas, get experience, and then
they come back here and come at it in at

(03:30):
the higher level in terms of the industry or the
the organization. They quite often come back when they're about
a start a family. So even though you know they
they're overseas and doing really well, once they start and
get that family, thinking about that family, then they tend
to come back to New Zealand. But I don't think
we should rely on that. I think we should work hard.

(03:52):
What's interesting to me is that we've got the second
largest diaspora people living in another country, second only to Ireland,
and we don't manage that diaspora. We don't work that diaspora.
We don't keep in puts with that diaspora and say, look,
even though you're not living in New Zealand at the moment,
or you might not ever live in New Zealand again,
can you do something to help us. It's called diaspora management.

(04:15):
We don't really do that.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Irish do Look, do the Irish do it.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yes, they do. And the Filipinos do it really well.
They even have a government department which looks after what
they call the overseas Filipinos and they do a really
good job. So some countries do The Israelis do it.
You know, there are some countries that keep them in
touch and work that diaspora and say can you help us,

(04:43):
Can you provide us with funding, can you provide us
with ideas. Perhaps you know, some of your skilled clients
could come and work from us for a while. We
don't do much of that.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
If there was something to go. I mean, the thing
is right, if they go overseas and they're looking for
greener pastures and they find on the other side, it's
not that flash, right, they will come back. So really,
if there was something like I'm thinking, like a war
in Europe or even in this part of the world,
they may return.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Mightn't they? Absolutely? So, as soon as we saw Donald
Trump elected, we got a tripling of people in the
USA who wanted to migrate to New Zealand. Yeah, that
was a tripling in forty eight hours. It was the
same with Boris Johnson. As soon as Boris Johnson got elected,
there was a big push factor. As soon as you
get something that's happening like the Ukraine War or Chernobyl,

(05:31):
then you get a significant increase in people who want
to come home. And New Zealand is safe. I mean,
we're a long way from any of these conflicts. We're
a country which when we talk to migrants, they come
here because the quality of the lifestyle is so good.
So we have a lot of things going for us.
You can see that in the numbers, by the way.
We're talking about the people leaving, but the numbers coming

(05:53):
into New Zealand are still very very high compared to
what you know. They've dropped about ten thousands and they
look us tracking down, but we're still attracting a lot
of migrants.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Paul, you are always fascinating. Thank you so much for
taking the time to talk to us. It's Professor Paul Spoonley,
Massy University sociologist. So just about the best thing we
could be hoping for at the moment is the reelection
of Donald Trump. I was gonna say and war, but
I don't want to inflict war on anybody just so
we get our people back. But I am prepared to
inflict Donald Trump on some people, so we get our
people back. So suddenly I'm going to start barracking for

(06:25):
Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
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