Kelvin Davidson

But that 14,000 number is the highest we've had for I think about 11 months.

So yeah, it does look like it's turning around a little bit.

And a two-way thing as well.

It looks like arrivals of non-citizens or basically kind of new migrants to the country that started to pick up.

As well as at the same time, New Zealand citizen departures seem to have just slowed a little bit as well.

So it's that sort of double whammy thing.

And I guess, you know, you always tend to have new migrant arrivals.

I suppose the thing that might give people a bit more encouragement is if we see those resident departures slowing down because it's been that big theme for a while of, you know, young New Zealanders heading off overseas.

So I guess encouraging if that can continue, we can start to see those departures slowing down even more as well as those arrivals coming in.

and there's a fair bit of pretty good evidence suggesting that the relative labor market performance plays a role in this you know if Australia for example is looking stronger in terms of its unemployment rate and jobs growth you tend to see that the New Zealand net migration balance is pretty soft as

as everyone heads off over there or migrants from other countries go to australia instead of here so um yeah just a bit of a hint that that relative position is turning around a little bit particularly not necessarily just yet but forecasts of a new zealand unemployment rate coming down jobs growth picking up a little bit but those relativities might shift and so they would play into a slightly stronger net migration balance so yeah like i don't think it's

It's nothing sort of emphatic yet, but when you look at that NZAC, when you look at net migration just turning around a wee bit, it does start to look a little bit more positive.

But there's also reasons for caution as well.

For every sort of positive headline you see, there are also other ones saying people are still battling with the cost of living, those sorts of things.

So a bit of balance I think is still important, but more encouraging numbers.

Yeah.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual numbers stay pretty much unchanged.

I would say this is a monetary policy statement.

You get the detailed forecast.

Now,