Big increase in South Africans moving to New Zealand

businesstech.co.za

Statistics New Zealand has published its latest immigration data showing the number of people that have moved to the country over the last year.

StatsNZ classifies migrants as overseas residents who arrive in New Zealand and cumulatively spend 12 of the next 16 months in the country. The duration of stay is based on observed travel histories from linked arrival and departure records.

The data showed that 149,000 migrant arrived between July 2018 and July 2019, an increase of around 8%.

For migrant arrivals in the July 2019 year, New Zealand citizens were the largest group with 35,000 (± 500) arrivals.

The next largest groups were citizens of:

China – 19,100 (± 400)
India – 12,500 (± 200)
South Africa – 9,200 (± 200)
Australia – 8,800 (± 400)
Philippines – 8,100 (± 200).

StatsNZ’s data shows that the number of South Africans has steadily increased over the last few years.

In 2016/2017 around 5,835 South Africans arrived in New Zealand, increasing slightly to 6,069 in 2017/2018. In July 2019 this jumped to 9,175 – an increase of over 3,000 people.