arrivals, departures and immigration

I found this page particularly interesting: Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia, February 2024

lots of noise about immigration/arrivals, but even with current numbers we still below/barely on par as compared to before covid.

there seems to be spike in departures from Australia (by non australians) too. in a way makes sense if all the temp visitors on student visas finish their studies, some will leave 3-4 years after your course finished. which is 24/25 (if you started post covid). That probably means we dont need to minimise intake, that will reach equilibrium on its own.

the other interesting thing that i didnt realise is absolute majority goes to vic and NSW. i thought WA and SA would take much more people (see table 2.4). But we dont know maybe people come to sydney/melbourne - realise its too dense no kangooroos around and move west. but to me this is bit concerning - i was hoped to more balanced distribution of people accross the country.

so what do i take from it? we dont really have immigration problem. we dont take more than we did before covid.

i then looked at dwelling completions Building Activity, Australia, December 2023 there the data is rather alarming. we r on clear downtrend as compared to 2019. cost of building? not sure.... but interesting bit for me here is the houses completed are nearly same, but other dwelling (appartments?) are on clear downtrend. thats not an easy problem to fix.... based on the "slope" of the curves would take at least 4-5 years to go back to before covid numbers.

anyway food for thought, maybe its obvious for many but was nonetheless interesting to see from actual data point of view (rather than media point of view).

 

I think the media has been focussing on permanent residents and increase in population, so even though there has been less migration to WA then other states over the immigration has caused higher % population change then other states. National, state and territory population, September 2023

 

I think many would arrive in Sydney and then get a connecting flight or a later flight to elsewhere as Sydney is the main hub - melb too.

As a comparison Thailand seen 28 million foreign arrivals in 2023. Japan was 25 million visitor arrivals.

 

The problem is the amount of people that the Govt let in at the one time, nothing can cope because we can't build fast enough to cope with the big influx of people, housing, hospitals, roads and so on.

 

And yet we don't see these new arrivals camping on the street or in tent cities waiting for accommodation. Where do they go?

 

A big change is the growing number of knock down rebuilds.

Sure, a new house is completed but it is replacement, not additional. Around us there is at least one “replacement” house being built in nearly every street. These are not adding to supply.

 

They buy existing houses or rent, increasing demand and adding to pressure on costs. Usually visa conditions require a level of financial backing.
(Refugees get social housing.)

This pushes out those unable to afford the increased costs.

 

There is really no data to support that.... we allow now less than in 2019... sure we build less but presumably (or not...) the diff isnt that big.

 

I would be very keen to see data (i tried to find but nothing) of shared occupancy in 2024 vs 2019. my guess it is much lower. people preffer to have their own space and that is what pushed prices more than immigration. but it is a silent effect in a way, hard to quantify becuase many shared houses operate on single lease with other tenants just pay cash to the main "leasing" person.

 

Some immigrants dont, they are used to living in crowded conditions and even prefer it that way as they fret living alone are superstious,afraid of ghosts and burgulars. They dont show up in dwelling statistics because they dont fill in census forms but they do show up in sales from supermarkets some places sell enough goods to supply twice what the Statistics from dwelling size show. These places with high supermarket sales per recorded capita also have lots of houses with 10 pairs of shows lined up on the porch, taking shoes of is also part of culture. They will 2 or 4 to a room and pay maybe $400 a room. Mean while locals are pushed out and some are living in tents in parents or friends back yards. To say they arent is ignorance of reality. They may also need to pay storage fees for their belongings. Some out of touch condecending Elitized here said any "Smuck" (which apparently means discarded foreskin )can buy a house but it is impossible to save a deposit if all your spare funds are paying storage fees .

 

I found some figures in this document.

A New Measure of Average Household Size (rba.gov.au)

It shows that the average household size was around 2.55 people in 2020, but it dropped to 2.49 people in 2023. That would increase the homes required by just over 2%, which would squeeze the market.

The extra people who arrived in the last year won't have helped.

 

It's all there if you look hard enough, double waiting times in hospitals, housing shortages Australian-wide, builders going bankrupt by the day = reduced housing growth and birth rates in Australia declining, why on earth would you continue to allow a large glut of immigration to come in?
I didn't even have look far to back my words.

 

Do you really need data to prove this?! I mean its common sense. Where are they going to go otherwise.
As mentioned above, the issue is the amount of people in such a short period of time which is exacerbated by an already pretty tough housing market(keeping context to property).

 

That page isn't the right one for migration, see at the end:


The migration page says:

Net gain of over 500,000!

 

Population growth by net migration is the highest it has been in half a century.

Building approvals and commencements have plummeted due to still-rising construction costs and cost of finance.

Household sizes are shrinking.

Rents have been rising at a significant pace and continue to do so (see above).

Yes, a housing crisis exists, and net migration is a significant part of the equation...

It's not the only thing, but it's indeed the most significant. That's not to say migration is a bad thing... The government would rather trigger and exacerbate a housing crisis, than allow GDP to go backwards, though of course we're all wise to it going backwards per capita.

The government chose a housing crisis over rising unemployment. They also chose an economy/system that cannot grow at the same speed as elevated population growth.

Sales volume is flat YoY - Totals sales $ is up, only because of inflation. Imagine where the economy would be without recent record migration...

 

What if you interpret an actual decrease in gdp as more pain for some people, versus a fall in per capita gdp as a little pain for most people?

 

I'd say that's exactly what it equates to. Per capita recession is probably better than the alternative.

I'd argue that whilst high migration might sustain the economy in the short-term, it may see unemployment rising but lag a bit - but still probably better overall. IE keeping people in jobs in the short-term by businesses being supported due to greater demand that rising population brings, but unless the economy is doing well, not enough jobs to be created for the growing population.

Which is evident in retail sales - despite population growth being the highest in 50 years, sales volume is flat, $ sales are up only because of inflation. Halve our recent population growth (ie back to norm) and we'd probably see volumes down and $ flat - unemployment would go up and we'd see a downturn begin.

Sustaining the economy through higher population growth may come at the expense of inflation being higher for longer, which is partly to blame for living standards reversing in Australia - household disposable income has gone backwards well beyond other OECD countries (at a shocking rate).

So yes - pain is spread across more people and less severe (though in Australia's case, still very severe) compared to those people who would've lost their jobs otherwise.

 

Is this meant to be the trickle-down economics which may or may not work based on what or who you read (or the colour of your politics)?

As a property owner, of course I'm happy to have demand supporting or pushing up rents and property values.

But I do also see issues with a lack of infrastructure (in Sydney at least) to support this population growth. Health, water, public transport and power to start with. And a lack of environmental consideration and crap building standards.

 

So its not perfect but better than many of the alternatives.

but then, i’m a realist without a political / austrian / keynsian / libertarian axe to grind.

 

Too much ground to cover here.

High migration can be used as a tool to gloss over structural issues in our economy, than solve those issues.

The can is being kicked down the road, and I feel it will be that way for decades to come.

Don't get me wrong - nothing wrong with migration. But there are issues that need solving that migration can mask, at least for a time...

Governments will always prefer to do what's easiest, and focus on policies that voters understand, even if not truly solving anything.

"Look over here not over there"

It would be nice if our governments could be held to account. But our two major parties are hardly different enough, brave enough, and voters without enough time or care to wade through all the political garbage to get to solutions. The conversation is void of substance.