Net inward migration for the year ending February was a positive 4,643 compared with a net annual inflow of 13,151 a year earlier.  If it keeps drifting down at this rate we will have a net annual outflow by about September 2008.

The deterioration by 8,500 since February 2007 was caused by a meagre increase by 800 in arrivals and, needless to say, an increase in departures by 9,300.  Of the 78,650 departures in the year to February 2008, 45,000 were to ‘Oceania region’ which is mainly Australia.  Australia also accounted for most of the increase (8,000) in departure numbers over the past year.

Looking at this flow a little more, there has been for some time the substantial flow to Australia for the Sunshine on the Coasts, and to get more professional experience on the CV in areas like finance in Melbourne before moving on to Europe.

In working around New Zealand’s regions we hear of a strong flow of skilled operators of various sorts from industries to the highly paid jobs in the mining industry, especially in Western Australia.  These may just be the high profile ones, but their departure is certainly putting some stress on employers in a number of New Zealand industries wanting to grow their capacity.  This would include oil and gas in Taranaki, forest and wood processing in a couple of regions and, presumably, dairy also.  There are a lot of higher-skilled people coming in from Europe and Asia, but they will probably need some skill-change upgrades to fill the gaps left by the experienced people heading west.

Tinkering with tax may encourage some of the sunshine-seekers to stay here, but will make no impact on the big dollars the operators can earn driving huge equipment in mining in the Pilbara and elsewhere.