An interesting Immigration report – part 2
Filed under: Hubby's Views, Life in New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
I blogged last week about the two immigration reports that were published side by side.
The first one was fascinating.
I’ve now read through the second one, Migration Trends & Outlook.
It was nowhere near as interesting as the first. Which is strange.
This second report is the one produced annually, is the major report that the first one uses as a basis, it has more content, more statistics & should be able to discuss trends better – and yet it does not. If anything the ‘trends’ part of the title is highly deceptive, as there is very little analysis or discussion of trends. Let alone any extrapolation of those trends in to the future. So the ‘outlook’ part of the report is also fibbing.
So we’re left with a report on Migration.
Which about fits, since it’s a mainly dry analysis of the statistical facts, with few conclusions drawn. And a lot of repetition. Apart from the odd self-congratulatory back slapping about what a good job INZ is doing. Which is repeated a few times just in case you didn’t get the message the first time round.
So what interesting information can we gleen from this report?
1. The Foreward tells us that 60% of the growth in the working age population from 2001-2006 has been from inward migration.
Which is then set against actual population growth in NZ. Natural population growth (births) is seen as the main driver, although that number is only an estimated figure put at 28,000-35,000 per year – compared with net migration of some 4,500 in recent years. Put a different way around, the spikes in NZ population growth are due to net inward migration, and most of those people (not unsurprisingly) are of working age.
2. The first major piece of spin we come across is in the section on how the impact of the global economic slowdown has been felt on migration to NZ.
In a very ‘we’re better than anyone else in the world‘ manner, it’s pointed out that every other country in the world has had to take action at a policy level to stop the flow of migrants into their country. But since INZ are so good at their job, and the NZ policies work so well, NZ hasn’t had to do that. It’s all labour market driven, and with more Kiwi’s competing for jobs, fewer migrants get those jobs.
Which is exaclty what happens in other countries, you don’t give temporary work visa’s to migrants to do jobs, since the locals are getting those jobs.
Then three pages later they actually say that NZ did make policy changes;
Taking some occupations off of the skills shortage list. Just like the UK, USA, Ireland & others.
They then forget to mention that they [INZ] have made it more difficult to renew temporary permits, just like other countries.
Although it could of course be argued that INZ refusing to renew a permit and people being forced to leave isn’t limiting the possibility to renew a permit, it’s just stopping it dead.
So beyond the spin, INZ is doing a job just as effective as any other country.
Which then leads us neatly into another interesting finding about the number of temporary vs permanent visa’s INZ has been issuing.
3. While some of the numbers vary in the report, and I’ve not quite got my head around why that is, the vast majority of people who were granted residency in the last couple of years previously held another type of temporary permit, such as Student or Work. What this means is that less people currently outside of NZ are being granted residency before they get here. On the latest numbers, look at figure 5.2, 81% of all successful residency applications are lodged within NZ.
Back when we applied you could only get residency with a job offer in hand, and then they relaxed the rules a little, so people got residency without job offers. While that still may be happening, INZ appear to be giving out more temporary visa’s to people, who are then told to come to NZ, try their luck and get a job..
Very Dangerous for the migrant in our opinion!
Because of course if you can’t find something, then tough, and you have to head back to your home country. INZ wrap this up in a nice little bow by saying they are allowing immigrants the ‘opportunity’ to labour market test their skills. i.e. your problem, your risk, that’ll be a temporary visa fee thanks, and another permanent visa fee if you are lucky enough to get a job.
And by the way, aren’t out policies great because they minimise effort required by Govt. to respond to changes.
4. There’s a lot more family members coming in from China. With China being the largest source of Parent/Sibling sponsorship & uncapped family (partners of Kiwi’s) applications. With the high number of Chinese students studying in NZ, I feel the only surprise is that it’s taken this long to notice that a lot of them were bringing their family over. After all, it’s a (relatively) quick and risk free method of migrating the family out of China. Study here for a few years, work part time, you’ve then got a degree & NZ work experience, get your permanent residency and sponsor the family in a few years time. Mum & Dad don’t need skills, or lots of money to invest in a business to get them over here, and the youngling has had a great experience leanring to live away from home in another culture.
All round good for them, and well done on making immigration policies work for them.
5. There’s finally another admission that the main interest with foreign students studying in NZ is the income NZ derives from them. Education, when classed as an export (same as tourism is classed as an export) is now one of NZ’s top five export industries. (Dairy is joint first with Tourism, with Meat & Mineral fuel exports being 3rd & 4th respectively).
Which would explain why anyone can give advice to a foreign student, you don’t have to be a licensed Immigration Adviser to do that - it’s ALWAYS about the money.
6. Figure 3.5 on p25 makes for some interesting study.
Arrivals (i.e. returns) of Kiwi’s to NZ has stayed approx the same, in a 10k band.
Arrivals of non-Kiwi’s has trippled in the same time.
Departures of Kiwi’s has fluctuated a lot, however remains consistently higher than arrivals(returns).
Departures of non-Kiwi’s has remained relatively flat, and it’s only in the last few years that the number has increased, to the point where it’s almost as much as Kiwi’s returning to NZ.
All four numbers taken together give you the view of net migration.
So if you step back from the hullabloo about the percentrage of migrants who don’t stay in NZ, and look at the raw numbers, there’s still a much greater number of Kiwi’s “buggering off” from NZ than non-Kiwi’s. More detail on the source countries for those migrants who are absent is included in Appendix D of the report, and makes for some interesting reading again.
7. By the numbers, China has the highest absent number of 14,868 (25%), while the UK is 2nd with 14,650 (only 16%). By the numbers, that accounts for a third of all the absent migrants. It would be interesting to see what would happen to the NZ economy, job market etc. if all those from the UK or China who were entitled to be here actually returned.
8. table 3.4 provides a year by year view of those absent from NZ. I’m sure I saw a nice chart of this somewhere, but can’t find it now, so we’ll stick with showing you the table.
This shows, the longer you’ve been in NZ, the higher the chance that you’ll leave next year. It is worth noting that those who have come here via a family category, are much more likely to be here in a few years time. Although the numbers don’t say whether the numbers of family sponsored people staying has a link to the original sponsors also staying, it would make sense. I just don’t have the linked numbers to prove it.
9. Figure 6.5 is also curious, more for the information about ‘other’ which is absent.
We look at the settlement regions of migrants to NZ. Auckland accounts for about 44%, with the rest of the country getting the remaining 56%. However, if you add up the numbers, you find that after the top five regions, there’s another 17% of migrants unaccounted for – which would make ‘other’ the 2nd largest settlement region for migrants in NZ. While we don’t have a clear citation for where this graphic comes from, you could probably find out through one of the Longtitudinal studies that StatsNZ carries out. I’ll have a dig around and see what I can find.
So there you go, a slightly less interesting report from Immigration. Chock full of numbers. If only INZ treated all their clients like this, it would be a much more friendly and personable dept. Oh, wait a minute, silly me, they do. We’re all just statistics.
Related posts:
- Well I never: An interesting Immigration report
- Immigration reports x2
- Report time – INZ Permanent & Long Term migration pt1
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