reuters.com
www.reuters.com

People are leaving New Zealand in record numbers as unemployment rises, interest rates remain high and economic growth is anaemic, government statistics show.

Data released by Statistics New Zealand on Tuesday showed that 131,200 people departed New Zealand in the year ended June 2024, provisionally the highest on record for an annual period. Around a third of these were headed to Australia.

While net migration, the number of those arriving minus those leaving, remains at high levels, economists also expect this to wane as the number of foreign nationals wanting to move to New Zealand falls due to the softer economy.

The data showed of those departing 80,174 were citizens, which was almost double the numbers seen leaving prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • auzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    351·
    3 months ago

    Just to play devils advocate though… awesome people and awesome country.

    I’ve always wondered if I’d rather live there and be poor honestly than live here in Australia (which is basically at least 50% redneck at this point)

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
      11·
      3 months ago

      It was so weird as an American to find out that country music is huge in Australia.

      It reminds me of how Mexican music was (and maybe still is) really popular in the Balkans because they were so closed off from most of the world when they were united as Yugoslavia.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
          11·
          3 months ago

          Because it’s a very American form of music. In fact, a lot of it involves a bunch of jingoistic patriotic bullshit.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
              1·
              3 months ago

              I get that. It just seemed to me, at least before I found that out, that it was a uniquely American form of music.

              Like imagine if you were from Mongolia, and someone was like, “throat-singing? We love that shit in Paraguay!” You’d probably think like I did about country music.

              • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.ccEnglish
                1·
                3 months ago

                I guess so.

                I think you can safely assume that most American culture is imported into Australia, the good and the bad.

                Some ass-hats are trying to ban books about non-binary sexuality from our library. I had thought that was uniquely American.