It was a fairly slow week on the domestic front, with the main release of international travel and migration turning out much as expected.
Net migration was strong again in July, with a seasonally adjusted inflow of 2,470 people. The surge in net migration to date this year has primarily been driven by fewer New Zealanders leaving for Australia, with permanent and longterm departures down 42% on a year ago. However, in the last few months we have also seen a strong increase in the number of New Zealanders returning from overseas – a trend that we expect to strengthen further.
Arrivals of overseas migrants resumed their upward trend, with a seasonally adjusted inflow of 7,580. Arrivals had dropped sharply in June, but in the absence of any obvious driver we took this simply as monthly volatility, which turned out to be the case.
Overall, these figures leave us more confident in our forecast of a rising trend for net migration, with the annual total exceeding 20,000 this year.
