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Loss of skilled trades workers is threatening NZ with economic crisis, experts warn.

The face of the exodus to Australia is changing as skilled trade workers in their 20s replace young, well-educated Kiwis flocking to Australia.

Ten years ago, New Zealand was hit by a brain drain; now young tradespeople are chasing jobs and larger pay packets in Australia in a migration dubbed the “trades drain”.

The number of New Zealanders living in Australia has jumped 24 per cent over the past five years and a new political party is calling for a limit on Kiwis crossing the Tasman.

The results of the 2011 Australian census, released yesterday, show that the number of New Zealanders living there reached 483,000 last year, up from 390,000 in 2006. The five-year increase is almost as big as the surge in the previous decade.

Australia’s mining boom is fuelling its economy, making the country even more attractive to Kiwi job-seekers – including those at the Oz Jobs Expo.

Thousands of New Zealanders – including many disillusioned immigrants – are looking for new jobs and new lives in Australia.

During the weekend, about 6000 people packed the Oz Jobs Expo in Auckland, at which Australian companies were headhunting Kiwi skills and experience.

Record numbers of New Zealanders continued to flee to Australia in the 12 months to February, with a net loss to that country of 39,100 people, the latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show.

New Zealand had an overall net loss of 4100 migrants in the year to February, the largest loss since the August 2001 year when a net 4400 left the country.

New Zealanders continued to abandon their home country for Australia, with the speed of annual departures accelerating to a record 53,000 last month.

New Zealand lost a net 39,100 people to Australia in the 12 months ended February 29, 4,100 of whom left in the month of February alone, Statistics New Zealand said today.

New Zealand recorded its biggest loss of migrants in a 12-month period since August 2001, as kiwis continued to jump the ditch seeking a better standard of life and higher-paying jobs in Australia.

Some 4,700 more New Zealanders left for Australia than arrived in January, taking the annual loss to a record 38,100 in the 12 month-period, according to Statistics New Zealand. That drove a monthly net outflow of migrants to 500, and pushed the net outflow of migrants to 3,134 in the year ended Jan. 31, the highest net loss since August 2001.

Carla and Craig Bradley would get about $100 a week more from the Government in the six months after having a baby – if they moved to Australia.

The Papakura couple had their third child, son Alex, in November.

Even though Craig works up to seven days a week in three jobs when work is available, the couple sometimes go without food for up to two days so they can feed their children.

Julia Gillard today will promise tax cuts to business which the Opposition yesterday said were too expensive to implement.

The Prime Minister will also tell families a Labor Government will create a new range of jobs, and keep taxes down.

Australia appears likely to bypass present blockages to clear a new way for New Zealanders to gain residency and citizenship across the Tasman.

Although details have yet to emerge, it seems likely that New Zealanders may be able to apply to become residents after a qualifying period, probably of several years.

Australia is underestimating its opportunity to transform the mining boom into decades of sustained prosperity by supplying the mining, energy and food demands of China and the rest of emerging Asia.

But the nation also is yet to understand the policy changes required to facilitate the unprecedented investment in new capacity, concludes a report commissioned by ANZ Bank from consulting firm Port Jackson Partners.

Chronic labour shortages in resource-rich Western Australia could put mining projects at risk, as the state struggles to plug a shortfall of skilled workers set to balloon to 150,000 by 2017, the region’s jobs minister said on Monday.

“I genuinely think that if you do not take drastic action to ensure that we address the labour force needs of Western Australia, some projects will be at risk,” Peter Collier, Western Australia’s Minister for Training and Workforce Development, said in an interview.

Emma and Terii Rahui aren’t going to Australia to make their fortune. And they aren’t quitting their homeland for good.

But they’ll be gone for at least three years and in that time, anything could happen.

They will join the thousands of Kiwis heading across the Tasman (3300 left in May alone this year) in search of a better lifestyle, job opportunities or warmer weather.

The exodus to Australia hit record levels in May, partly due to Christchurch residents fleeing the city following February’s fatal earthquake.

The net loss of 3300 people in the month was higher than the previous record of 2900 set in 1979.

Nationally, net migration has been negative since March this year with more people leaving the country permanently than arriving, after the quake.

Aussies are taking the healthy, wealthy and wise message to heart. We’re drinking and smoking less, trimming fat from our budgets and snubbing credit cards.

Frugal is fashionable.

But our houses are our castles, and we are willing to splurge when it comes to home entertainment and decorating.

Australia’s skilled migrant intake is set to become more “English” and less Asian because of a tougher language test and an employer push to recruit more suitable workers.

An Immigration Department report says fewer than one in five skilled migrants comes from major English background nations such as Britain, the United States, South Africa and Canada.

The business banking war is hotting up, with banks increasing the stakes in an attempt to take customers away from their competition.

Westpac fired the latest salvo with its offer to businesses – switch before June 30 and they will waive all establishment fees on loans over $10,000 and up to $10 million; zero account-keeping fees on transaction accounts for a year; and up to $20,000 in switching costs covered on new business loans over $100,000.

The upper limit of the government’s carbon tax compensation package could be raised, with some families on incomes of up to $170,000 a year in line to receive some form of financial respite.

Government sources yesterday said the broader compensation, however, would be tied to family circumstances such as whether they were receiving single or dual incomes and the number of children in the household. The revelation comes after months of debate about whether families on incomes of $150,000 a year could be considered “rich”.

The unemployment rate in Canberra dropped to a fresh 33-year low of 4.1 per cent in January, fueling speculation of another interest rate hike.

The unemployment rate fell to a seasonally-adjusted 4.1 per cent in January compared with 4.3 per cent in December and surpassing last September’s 4.2 per cent trough, data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows.

Australia is home to some of the best scenic drives in the world, but sometimes it’s when you step out of the car that the real excitement begins.

Across the country, walking tracks head onto mountains, along coasts and even through desert areas that vehicles simply can’t reach. But with thousands of walking choices out there, which tracks are the best? Walk this way…

Fresh evidence is emerging of a “race to the bottom” among banks and other lenders as demand for mortgages slides and competition boils over.

Lenders are increasingly cutting standards by enabling home buyers to make smaller deposits, new research indicates.

Australia’s wages are higher, but are expats really any better off?

After a four-year degree, surveyor Robert Rameka discovered he was earning the same amount of money as his brother who had left school for Australia to drive a forklift.

One of the concerns we have for the next few years is that there will be a large net migration outflow from New Zealand to Australia.

Already the net annual loss across the ditch has risen from just below 15,000 in April last year to 21,000 in December. The average loss for the past 15 years has been 20,000 per annum and the most recent peak was a loss of 35,000 in January 2009. On average this net loss across the Tasman is comfortably offset by a gross inflow of people to New Zealand from other parts of the world with the net overall migration change for the country being +15,000 per annum for the past decade.

Labour says the fact Kiwis still looking overseas for work shows NZ in trouble.

A two-day Oz Jobs Expo in Auckland attracted 7000 people – some of whom were hired on the spot – but the Prime Minister says it is natural that some New Zealanders will shift across the Tasman.

A new survey indicates the wage gap between this country and Australia appears set to widen, with accounting firm Grant Thornton warning the figures could indicate the start of another brain drain from New Zealand.

Its survey of 250 Australian and 180 New Zealand businesses found 78 percent of Australian businesses were looking to increase wages either in line with inflation or higher, compared with 55 percent of companies in this country.

Australia should shut the door to thousands of New Zealanders to help stabilise the nation’s population at 26 million by 2050, federal Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson says.

Migration from New Zealand is uncapped and the number of Kiwis permanently settling has jumped from 16,400 in 2002-03 to 47,800 last financial year.

According to the quarterly report, Government spending measures and a rebuilding of inventories were helping to support economic activity right now, but they would not be enough to secure a sustained improvement in the global economic outlook.

“High unemployment, tight credit and rapidly rising borrowing by Governments (which threatens to crowd out private investment) all bode poorly for the short-term outlook,” D&B said.

Australia’s economic growth unexpectedly accelerated in the second quarter.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said Australia’s economy had grown faster than that of any other advanced country in the past year.

“This is a remarkable result given how fragile the global economy is,” Swan said.

A measure of economic growth improved sharply in June, signalling that Australia may be through the worst of the economic downturn.

The annualised growth rate of the Westpac-Melbourne Institute leading index of economic activity was -3.3 per cent in June.

This was an improvement from -5.3 per cent in May and the best annualised rate in seven months.

Relations between China and Australia may be at their lowest point for years on many fronts, but that hasn’t stopped the signing of a massive deal last night which is the biggest single investment ever seen in Australia.

Australia has cemented its biggest ever trade deal,  a $50 billion contract to supply liquefied natural gas to China, in what the Federal Government calls a win for everyone that will create jobs, help drag the economy back to health and still be good for the environment.

David and Libby Koch say it’s unlikely that the residential property market will plunge.

One of the great differences between the impact of the global financial crisis in Australia compared with Britain and the US is that our residential property prices have not been crunched.

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New data shows the Australian housing market has seen its strongest growth since the financial crisis took hold.

The figures from Australian Property Monitors show house prices rose more than 3.3 per cent on average across the country in the June quarter.

That is the strongest quarterly growth in prices since December 2007.

Australia’s economy may rebound faster than the central bank forecast six months ago as consumer and business confidence surges, Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens said.

It appears “that the downturn we are having may turn out not to be one of the more serious ones of the post-War era, in contrast to the experiences of so many other countries,” Stevens said in Sydney.

4:00PM Wednesday Oct 22, 2008

The population drift to Australia reached its highest level in at least 30 years last month.

Figures published today by Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) showed about 47,200 people left New Zealand for Australia on a permanent or long term (PLT) basis during the year to September. About 13,200 came the other way.

4:00AM Tuesday Oct 21, 2008

Kiwis have yet another reason to move across the Tasman following last week’s announcement by the Australian Government of a A$14,000 ($15,925) grant for first-home buyers.

New Zealanders with Australian citizenship or permanent residency who fulfill certain criteria are also eligible for the grants.

NAB and Aussie Home Loans have joined the rush to cut interest rates, following the ANZ’s surprise move to change rates independent of the Reserve Bank for the first time in over a decade.

NAB yesterday dropped its standard variable home loan by 20 basis points to 8.36 per cent.

Official house price figures due out across the Tasman today could give another clue to the prospects of an early interest rate cut there.

The house price index for capital cities, to be released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning, could show whether the economic slowdown is biting the real estate sector.

Australians should brace themselves for a Kiwi onslaught, according to a population expert who says a New Zealand election later this year will trigger an exodus.

Speaking at the Australian Population Association’s 14th biennial conference in Alice Springs, Professor Richard Bedford from the University of Waikato said there was an average of 800 New Zealanders a week leaving for Australia.

Employers struggling to find competent staff to fill vacancies are facing the worst national skills deficit in almost a decade.

Statistics New Zealand figures last week showed that, in the year to May, almost 44,750 New Zealanders migrated to Australia, the highest exodus of Kiwis across the Tasman in more than a decade. At the same time, 13,555 Australians made the move in the opposite direction. The net annual population outflow of 31,194 to Australia was the highest since 2001.

House prices are tipped to rise next financial year as Australia’s fastest population growth in two decades outweighs the effect of higher interest rates, an economic forecaster says.

The BIS Shrapnel Residential Property Prospects’ 2008 to 2011 report, also says that banks may offer more attractive lending rates in 2009.

The Aussies are revolting over Auckland’s high placing in an international quality of life survey.

The city was named as the fifth best city to live in, trumping Sydney (10th), Melbourne (17th), Perth (21st), Adelaide (29th) and Brisbane (34th). Wellington also topped four Australian cities placing 12th.