New Zealand population growth starts to climb as border reopens

NEW Zealand has recorded its best quarterly population growth in two years after the removal of pandemic border restrictions led to a net inflow of migrants.

The estimated population increased by 8,000 or 0.2 per cent in the three months through September, Statistics New Zealand said on Thursday (Nov 17) in Wellington. That’s the biggest gain since 8,500 in the third quarter of 2020 and raises the nation’s population to 5,127,400.

The recovery is still less than half the average quarterly pace of growth in the five years before the Covid-19 pandemic, adding to signs of ongoing tightness in New Zealand’s labour market. The nation closed its border to most foreigners from March 2020 and the lack of immigrant workers has fanned wage inflation and forced the central bank to respond with aggressive interest rate increases.

The nation added 4,600 migrants in the quarter — the first net inflow since 2020 — while the population’s natural increase was 3,400.

In the 12 months through September, the population increased just 12,400 or 0.2 per cent. That’s up from an 8,100 gain in the year through June, which was the lowest since records began in 1992. BLOOMBERG