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

Transcript

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

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We're joined by Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: at Large. So, as part of your Inside Economics column
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: in the New Zealand Heralds, you've done some digging into
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: the migrant numbers and a figure there that is of
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: relative concern is the age group of twenty five to
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: forty six year old appearing to be leaving the country
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: in significant numbers at the moment.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: So the stems from on Tuesday, I think it was,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: we got the numbers from statsn Z for Kiwi's leaving
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: you know, migration data, and it showed they had they
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: highlighted some age statistics that showed a lot of young
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: people leaving. You know, the peak age for New Zealanders
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: leaving the country is twenty five. And I put that
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: in the headline and that was the story. But then
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: I did a bit more digging and kind of realized
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: that those numbers, while they are at you know, a
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: high number, are always pretty high, so that the variance
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: isn't that much. If you go back to twenty eleven,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: you know, people are going on their oe at that time.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: So how to look at the other numbers from the
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: ages of from about twenty five on through to about
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: forty six, that's where the numbers are at record levels
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: and are much higher than they were in previous years.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: And that concerns me a bit because those are people
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: that aren't probably going for an oe adventurous sort of
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: trip around Southeast Asia and then wash up in London
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: and work in a pub. Those are people who are
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: skilled people who have been educated here and are leaving
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: because they need better work opportunities and economic opportunities.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: And that's not great from a crown revenue perspective, is
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: it that particular cohort of New Zealander is leaving.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: No, Well, they are bigger, they earn more tag we
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: as we get older, we tend to pay earn more
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and pay more tax, so you can see why that's
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: digging a bit of a hole in the crown revenue.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: So yep, but we've still got a net migration gain,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: which means that there are still some Keiwis coming home
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: and migrants coming into the country. But that's dropping away
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: really fast. But also it's harder to get the you know,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: the skills mixed there. The government's talked a lot about,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: you know, really trying to up the openness of New
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Zealand to skilled migrants because we're you know, in dire
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: need of engineers and doctors and all those sort of people.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: But it sounds like we are losing a lot right now.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Well, people in their thirties and forties tend to more
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: likely to have children as well, and so you move
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: your children over to another country, they start going to
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: an Australian school that get Australian accents, and what you've
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: got some Australians as opposed to the normal thing that
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of us did. We went overseas
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: and then got pregnant and then came back because we
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: thought this was the place to bring up our kids.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: But all of a sudden, you've got Australian kids and
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: they're going to Australian and schools or English or wherever
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: you go, and then you've got serious roots in that
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: country that's going to make it less likely to come home.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I think if you're going in your mid
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: mid or early forties, you're probably going because you've got
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: something lined up, you know. So the opportunity is there.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: You don't sort of just yeah, yeah, which you know, look,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: look great. It's great that it's been a tradition and
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: still is a tradition. And you'd expect high numbers of
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Kiwis heading off on the oe, the younger Kiwi's, you know,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: because they were you know, stuck here for four years
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: with um and dad and all that sort of stuff
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: through COVID, and so it makes sense there was a
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: bulge there. But look, I know that, you know, anecdotally,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: we know that this is a problem, but it just
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: sort of confirms that it is real. I've had a
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: look at the comments online. There's a lot of debate
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: about what's driving it. I think for me, primarily it
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: would be the economics of it. Jobs, you know, unemployments,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: rising wages, you know, higher wages, and so I think
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: economics is at the root of why people migrate. I
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: have noticed a lot of comments saying that New Zealand's
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: got too woke and all that sort of stuff too.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: There's that sort of cultural debate, but I'm not sure
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: where you go around the world.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll wait, wait to you land in Sydney.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Experience for exactly and money talks. Isn't it right? If
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: you're in that age cohort and you've got a particular
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: position which is quite high up, and you get off
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: at double your salary in Australia or further abroad, what
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: are you going to do? You're gonna have that conversation say,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: is it worth up routing here, pulling the kids out
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: of school and sitting up shop in Australia.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: Well, I was in Memphis not so long ago, and
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: we were driving around these suburbs and we're pointing at
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: these mansions and that, and I asked that our driver,
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: you know, oh well, how much do you pay for those?
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: And he said it's insane, you can't afford them. That
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: that house was giant, looked like the White House. That's
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: five hundred thousand. So I mean house prices.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: If you can trade in the house in Auckland and
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: get a mention in Memphis, and you've got the skills
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: that Memphis wants. I don't know what country.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: Music, but if you're going to go to America, you
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: just have to do it the right way. Don't walk
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: over the border, or else you'll have ice knocking on
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: your door and having you out.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is that as well, Liam, Thank you very much.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: If you want to check out the column, it's Inside Economics.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It's on the New Zealand Herald and well worth a read.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talk set B listen live on
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio