Australia has an unusually large number of migrants. This is who they are
Our resident Stats Guy takes a closer look at Australia’s migrant mix.
In a recent column we learned that 431,000 Australians live outside of their country of birth; today, we will look at the migration into and out of Australia in 2024.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics allows us a detailed look into our national migration intake through its TableBuilder tool.
This gives us a nice understanding about what’s going on with migration at the moment. Considering just how important and how frequently the topic is discussed, it’s crucial to understand some basic numbers.
In 2024, about 580,000 new residents arrived in Australia. This data includes both Australian-born people returning to Australia and people born abroad settling into Australia.
Since only 240,000 left Australia permanently in the same year, the nation experienced net migration growth of 340,000 in 2024. This sounds like a lot because it is an unusually big number.
Looking at a different ABS dataset, we can see that 340,000 net new migrants is much higher than the pre-pandemic average of 246,000.
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During the pandemic, our migration intake even turned negative for a bit. Averaging out 2020 to 2023 data, the post-pandemic average is 243,000. We will soon fall back down to about 250,000 net new migrants.
What visa types are our new migrants on? The largest category remains Temporary Student – that’s international students.
Students made up 35 per cent of our net migration intake. The net student figures will soon fall.
Since we didn’t take any students in during 2020 and 2021, there are fewer students finishing their degrees now and the outflow of students is small. Soon the 2022 intake of international students will leave, and the result are lower net student figures.
Lacklustre economic growth in New Zealand led to more Kiwis crossing the Tasman. Australians, however, left the country in larger numbers than returned from overseas.
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I argued in a previous column, that Australia needed to be more strategic about migration. One of my basic demographic forecasts is that we run out of workers.
I am not arguing for higher migration intake than the long-term average of about 250,000. Rather I would want to see some student visas dropped and transferred to skilled visas of sorts.
This can soften the skills shortage in a targeted way. I am thinking about more employer sponsored visas in crucial fields like medicine, aged care, and logistics.
Migration makes Australia younger. We import young people. So much so that about 90 per cent of all net overseas migration intake falls on people under 40 years of age. That’s how migration slows down the ageing of the country.
International students are a bit of a special case here. They do statistically keep the country young but don’t add to the workforce at scale. Despite all stereotypes of international students coming here to secretly work as Uber drivers, most simply study.
Australia doesn’t need to rejuvenate its population to correct some sort of statistic. Rather, we must urgently fill a skills gap in construction to ensure we build enough homes and infrastructure, we must roughly double our aged-care system by 2040 and need carers like never before, and our national logistic system runs out of truckies.
This is where an adjustment in our migration mix is needed.
Gradually take in slightly more skilled workers and slightly fewer workers. The goal here would be a gradual and controlled shift rather than a radical and rapid transformation of the system.
Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, or LinkedIn.
