Kiwis migrating to Australia have doubled in the last 10 years from 25,000 in 2003, to over 51,000 in the year to March 2013. The love affair with Australia is fickle, and the slightest cloud on the Australian economic horizon causes the number trekking over to thin out.

New Zealand registered a small, yet positive, net migration inflow for the year to January 2013. New Zealand attracted 85,659 people for permanent and long -term migration. This compared with 85,647 departures for the year, which are 1,077 people less than a year earlier.

The unemployment in December quarter was 160,000, which is 10,000 less than it was in September quarter. The reason it dropped is because the number who gave up looking for a job increased by 21,000 people.

BERL’s preliminary assessment of the impact of Aoraki Polytechnic on South Canterbury has just been released.

In fact the HLFS (Household Labour Force Survey) employment numbers are not erratic at all. The annual increase in the volume of work in the economy each quarter has been tracking down since June quarter 2011, and the September quarter figures continued that trend.

The simple answer is that in September quarter there was an increase in the unemployed on the number in June quarter 2012 because the economy created too few jobs.

Despite our forecast being almost spot on, it gives us not pleasure whatsoever to see the official unemployment rate rise to 7.3%. Actual official unemployment totalled 170,000 in September, up from 151,200 this time last year.

Employment growth continues to fall. It dropped from 43,000 a year ago to just 12,000 in the 12 months to June 2012. That 12,000 increase is nowhere near enough to employ the increase in the number of people who want to work. Even this meagre employment increase could well become negative in the next six months if the trend over the last year continues.

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New Zealanders permanently migrating to Australia have hit another new record high, according to the April release of international travel and migration data from Statistics New Zealand.

New Zealanders permanently migrating to Australia has hit a new record high according to the March release of international travel and migration data from Statistics New Zealand.

On 5 March 2012, Statistics New Zealand released their international migration data for January 2012.

Media Release: EMBARGO 10.30am Wednesday 14 December 2011