Fewer New Zealanders are leaving for good, says new migration stats released this morning.
A slumping tourism industry shouldn't take too much heart from new visitor arrival stats that show a 9 per cent increase for April - mainly because the jump is due to Easter happening that month, after being in March the year before.
Nearly 196,000 came here in April, up 16,500
from the previous April, said Statistics New Zealand this morning.
The shift in the timing of Easter, from March in 2008 to April in 2009, contributed to this increase. If March and April are combined, then compared with the same two months last year, the numbers are down 2 per cent.
New Zealand residents departed on 162,400 short-term overseas trips in April 2009, down one per cent from April last year. The number heading to Fiji was down 1,500, China down 1,100 and Japan down 900.
Trips to Australia were up 2,900 while departures to Samoa were up 900.
For the April 2009 year, total New Zealand resident departures numbered 1.940 million, down 3 per cent from the previous year.
On the more permanent and long term immigration front, fewer Kiwis are leaving our shores with further evidence the transtasman population drain is continuing to slow.
The net outflow to Australia was 32,000 in the April 2009 year, down from the record net outflows of 35,400 in both the December 2008 and January 2009 years.
Permanent and long-term arrivals exceeded departures by 400 in April, compared with a net outflow of 1,300 in April last year. The increase was mainly due to 1,600 fewer long term departures of New Zealand citizens.
New Zealand's annual net migration balance was a gain of 9,200 in the April 2009 year, up from 4,700 in the April 2008 year.
While the number of Kiwis leaving these shores for good has fallen, the number returning home to live has only increased slightly - with 24,500 in the April 2009 year, just above the annual average of 23,400 seen for the 1979-2008 December years.
"Arrivals of New Zealand citizens tend to show little variation year-to-year," said Statistics NZ.
NZ HERALD STAFF
