EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This project aims to identify the labour market outcomes of migrant groups to New Zealand. It also investigates whether differences in such outcomes can be explained by the differing characteristics of various migrant groups.

We investigate the relationships between basic labour market characteristics and basic labour market outcomes, and the differences between the migrant types in terms of these characteristics and outcomes over time. Information from migrant arrival cards, as well as detailed cross-section data from the 1981, 1996, 2001 and 2006 Censuses are used.

Headline observations follow:

• 18% of New Zealand's working-age population in 1981 were overseas born. This proportion increased to 25% in 2006. In the last five years, overseas born people represented at least 60% (or 162,000) of the increase in the working-age population.
• Focusing more closely on the high labour force participation age groups of 30-49 years old, over 2001-2006, there was a net inflow of 64,200 overseas born and a net outflow of 1,200 New Zealand born. Further, the 64,200 net inflow of migrants was spread across the whole range of birthplace regions.
• Migrants who subsequently left New Zealand numbered at least 50,000 between 2001 and 2006. This implies a rate of outmigration of 24 per 100 arrivals over the 2001-2006 period. This is less than the 42 per 100 arrivals rate experienced over the 1996-2001 period. Interestingly, the highest rate of outmigration is for migrants from countries with mainly European ethnicity. This group presumably has few language and other constraints on their global mobility. Return migration is likely to be high to countries with high incomes, such as Australia and the United Kingdom.
• The labour market outcomes for migrants are shown to improve as their length of residence in New Zealand increases. The decline in the rate of outmigration shows that New Zealand is increasing its ability to attract people to settle and stay here. Buoyant economic conditions between 2001 and 2006 and a change in policy matching skills with employment undoubtedly play an important role.

Within this background, we constructed models from high-level cross-tabulations to investigate four main labour market outcomes: income levels, sources of income, labour force status and occupations. The conclusions below arise from two sets of analysis - observations from numerous multi-way cross-tabulations of census data and a multivariate analysis of migrant and non-migrant-related influences determining labour market outcomes.

General conclusions

In describing differences in labour market outcomes, migrant-related characteristics (region of birth and years in New Zealand) were helpful in only some cases. Furthermore, such characteristics were of relatively small importance in these cases.

• In most cases, the large majority of the differences in labour market outcomes across the various sub-groups of the population could be described by non-migrant-related characteristics, i.e. by differences in age composition and highest qualifications possessed.
• Amongst the migrant-related factors that were found to be helpful in describing the differences, the main one was years in New Zealand. In particular, inferior labour market outcomes for migrants with less than five years in New Zealand were observed in some cases.
• Notably, once migrants had more than 15 years in New Zealand, labour market outcomes became close to indistinguishable from the New Zealand born in most cases. Further, birthplace (including New Zealand) was found, in the main, to be a relatively unimportant factor in many of the equations that were estimated. It should be noted that this may be a feature of the methodology/data, as the duration in New Zealand was split into three groups. An analysis with unit record data may well reveal the 'time to convergence' to be shorter.
• Policy implications of these findings suggest, firstly, a focus on the qualifications as well as the matching of skills with employment of migrants and, secondly, a focus on their retention (i.e. ensuring they stay in New Zealand).