Olsen said while it is normal for New Zealanders to leave the country, it will be harder to convince people to return, if there are ongoing issues around housing affordability and job prospects.
That ‘brain drain’ could pose problems for society as the population ages, Olsen said.
“We need to have as many young people as we can who are still part of the economy … who are being innovative and bringing their new thinking to the game so we can be more productive,” he said.
“If we are losing our young talent and we’re not able to attract them back it makes all of [that] so much harder.”
Adjusting for population it seems to be about the same - population has gone from about 4.3 million in 2013 to 5 point whatever million is it now.
I think it’s cold comfort though that every time we get a downturn like this, we do austerity that makes things even worse and let key sectors like construction just collapse and workers relocate to places where they actually try and do counter cyclical support.
Yes austerity is sort of entrenching our downturns for longer. I guess it’s not so much that we’re losing people, as who we are losing.