Auckland is growing fast and by some estimates, almost two thirds of immigrants to New Zealand make Auckland their home. Most want to be close to where their family and friends are, more often than not, this happens to be Auckland. This is not as bad a thing as it may seem. For starters, wouldn’t anyone want to be close to friends and relatives when settling into a new place?
Extend this logic a bit to the property market. Once anyone feels settled in a new city, and as per a longitudinal immigration survey most immigrants do 18 months after taking up permanent residence in New Zealand; buying a home is the natural next step.
In fact, this is something to be celebrated because Auckland, and indeed the whole of New Zealand, needs immigrants. With immigrants come new ideas, a sense of wanting a better life which in turn fuels growth, enterprise and this spills over as progress for all, not just immigrants.
Asian migrants may be contributing to the soaring house prices, but aren’t they also the ones that will give the city the critical mass of consumers for Kiwi business to sell products and services to?
Analysts and commentators peg a high percent of property buyers to be Asians in Auckland, most buying multiple properties, which lead to unaffordable property market for Kiwis. Immigrants and overseas investors get a share of the blame when actually, the growth concentrated in Auckland alone; might be the cause. As per Statistics NZ says the region’s population is likely to grow by a third, from 1.5 million to 1.97 million, by 2031, accounting for 61 per cent of the country’s total population growth. Auckland will have a much higher share of the national population in comparison to other global cities like Tokyo, Paris, London or Copenhagen.
This looks like a good time for other centres in New Zealand to explore and learn from their sister city relationships. Offering new Kiwis an incentive to be in other cities in the form of over-all development in other centres of the country – infrastructure, cultural, economic – with an immigrant friendly approach; would be inviting for the ‘swarm’ who are currently setting their sights on Auckland.
If you look closely at any cities that have vibrancy; they also have a healthy immigrant, transnational population acting as vital catalysts of growth and prosperity.
People are told that immigrants steal their jobs. Yes, having more competition for jobs makes it tough. The other perspective is that competition makes everyone try harder, gain new skills, raise the quality of products, the standard of service and compel companies to have smarter pricing. And can New Zealand underestimate or rule out the possibility of immigrants setting up shop here, inject money into the country from overseas and generate employment. This often is the case despite many immigrants being highly qualified, who don’t get jobs and who have to downgrade their skills significantly in their settlement process here. Perhaps, immigrants are not really as sinister as they’re made out to be and are in fact the fresh blood needed in New Zealand or fresh meat in the form of cheap labor for businesses. Now that is another topic for another time.
Q of the week: What is your opinion on exploitation of migrants by employers?
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