Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics chief executive on the reports claiming the 'brain drain' could be slowing down

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

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.
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  Speaker 2: Let's go to the brain drain numbers. So these are
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  Speaker 2: migration stats out. Looks like the worst of it might
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  Speaker 2: be over. Migration stats out for the year to November.
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  Speaker 2: The rate of Kiwi citizens leaving the country has fallen
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  Speaker 2: since June, and we had a small net population gain
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  Speaker 2: of about ten thousand for the year to November. Brad
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  Speaker 2: Olsen is Infametrics principal economists with US Tonight, Brad, Good evening.
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  Speaker 3: Good Evening, Ryan.
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  Speaker 2: So we're not all moving to Australia anymore, is that
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  Speaker 2: what we're saying? What are we saying?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think you're exactly right that we've seen most
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  Speaker 3: of the trends effectively plateau. So you know, instead of
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  Speaker 3: seeing huge numbers of Kiwis that have continued to move out,
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  Speaker 3: yes they're still high, but they're not continuing to increase.
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  Speaker 3: They're sort of now moving a bit more sideways. And
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  Speaker 3: even you look at those figures of Kiwis moving to
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  Speaker 3: Australia and sort of the overall net gain there that
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  Speaker 3: does seem to be again easing back just ever so
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  Speaker 3: slightly in recent times. Long story short, probably the most
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  Speaker 3: interesting thing with these figures is not only the headline figured,
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  Speaker 3: like you say, roughly ten thousand was the net migration
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  Speaker 3: figure over the last twelve months, but also the revisions
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  Speaker 3: in terms of people coming into the country as well.
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  Speaker 3: The arrival figures and departures have both been revised lower
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  Speaker 3: in November compared to what we had previously, and it
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  Speaker 3: just sort of in our minds when we look through
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  Speaker 3: those figures, just suggests that there's not quite as much
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  Speaker 3: intensity in terms of both the number of people still
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  Speaker 3: coming in, which was always hard to understand when you
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  Speaker 3: looked at the likes of the higher unemployment rate, but also,
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  Speaker 3: like you say, not quite as many people leaving as
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  Speaker 3: we might have first expected.
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  Speaker 2: So has the whole thing been a bit overhyped?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, in a sense we're still yet to
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  Speaker 3: see fully even the most recent figures are still quite volatile,
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  Speaker 3: and you do see those revisions come through quite a bit.
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  Speaker 3: But now we're sort of getting a little bit more
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  Speaker 3: certainty around the data for what happens sort of more
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  Speaker 3: mid twenty twenty five, and that certainly suggests that again
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  Speaker 3: some of those primary expects might have been a bit overhyped,
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  Speaker 3: and part of it seems to be when you dig
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  Speaker 3: into the figures, it's sort of hard to tell when
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  Speaker 3: someone leaves the country if they're going to be a
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  Speaker 3: migrant or if they're just going on a holiday and
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  Speaker 3: maybe a longer holiday an idea expect that when you
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  Speaker 3: look in some of the figures, it might well have
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  Speaker 3: been that there were a few more Kiwis that were
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  Speaker 3: taking trips to Australia. But it also might have been
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  Speaker 3: that people have been looking overseas at jobs they might
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  Speaker 3: have moved, figured out that actually there's not as many
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  Speaker 3: sort of just heaps of spare jobs overseas compared to
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand and actually might well have had to come back.
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  Speaker 3: You've been hearing more anecdotes of that recently as well,
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  Speaker 3: so there's a combination of things. But it does seem like, look,
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  Speaker 3: the migration figures do seem to be trending out a
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  Speaker 3: bit more at where they currently are, rather than dipping
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  Speaker 3: up or dipping down particularly quickly.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting stuff. Brad appreciate it. Brad Olson in for Metrics.
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  Speaker 2: Good to have you on the show.
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