Photo: AFP / Farooq Khan
Journalist Ged Cann says he started thinking about moving overseas out of concern over whether he would ever be able to build the kind of life he wanted in New Zealand.
"When it became clear the newly-elected National-led government was going to hand tax breaks back to property investors I decided the prospects for my generation affording a home and having a good life in New Zealand were limited.
"It was a choice between staying in a low-wage, high-cost-of-living country where half of my wage would go on mortgage repayments, or moving to a high-wage country with lower cost of living and more career options."
He said he spoke to recruiters who said house prices and the high cost of living meant they struggled to attract and retain international talent, "hamstringing the likes of the tech and the international education sector".
In the year to March 2025, 47,734 migrants left New Zealand for Australia - 86 percent of them were New Zealand citizens. Photo: Supplied / Qantas
He initially applied for a job that would have been based in South East Asia but after he interviewed for the role he was offered a job in Melbourne, with support for the move.
"There are a lot more opportunities, and wages really are markedly higher. Adjusting for the exchange rate, my wage increased 31 percent after moving to Melbourne.
"I find the workforce are also more dynamic. I remember the day I arrived on the 6am flight out of Christchurch I sat in a café and found myself accidentally eavesdropping, and I was staggered at the number of young people coming and going, discussing business ideas, or new products, or start-ups they were involved in."
He said the perks were better, too.
- Were we better off in the 80s? Listen to No Stupid Questions with Susan Edmunds
"Unions here are stronger, which means overtime payments and things like higher rates on weekends are enforced as a matter of course. The minimum superannuation contribution is also much higher here - 12 percent of earnings, compared to 3 percent for KiwiSaver. The difference that makes is massive, and you visibly see your retirement savings grow every fortnight."
He is one of many New Zealanders who have made the leap for better work opportunities in Australia.
In the year to March 2025, the most recent for which data is available, 47,734 migrants left New Zealand for Australia, of whom 86 percent were New Zealand citizens.
Accounting for people moving the other way, the net loss was just under 30,000.
New Zealand's annual net loss averaged about 30,000 a year during 2004 to 2013, and 3000 a year during 2014 to 2019, Stats NZ said.
Australian recruiters are working hard to appeal to New Zealand job hunters, as this country's labour market continues to struggle.
There are ads on Trade Me from Australian firms wanting to hire New Zealanders including air conditioning technicians on $45 to $55 an hour with assistance with relocation and a sign-on bonus, carpenters, land development surveyors, technicians, civil engineers and roofers.
"The number of job listings that contain the key words of 'Australia' or some combination of 'move/relocate to Australia' is small, accounting for about 0.05 percent of all listings annually. While we've seen the total number of these listings gradually increase over the last five years, there's not enough data to draw meaningful conclusions from," a spokesperson said.
Seek's New Zealand site offers the option of searching for roles in Australia, and there are almost 18,000 available.
A recent Seek posting that was emailed to New Zealand jobhunters asked teachers to relocate to Victoria from New Zealand and earn up to A$118,063 a year plus 12 percent superannuation.
Seek said the number of New Zealand applications for Australian roles was higher now than before Covid. Just over 1 percent of all applicants for Australian jobs are in New Zealand.
About a quarter of New Zealanders were applying for jobs in Queensland. That was followed by Victoria at 22.5 percent.
Just over 11 percent were applying for trades and services roles.
Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr said he had recently been at a building industry conference where participants told him they expected many of the people featured as "apprentices of the year" would go to Australia once they finished their training.
"That's just one example, there have been others telling me that... accountants, lawyers... it's frustrating for them to train them up and they leave."
Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said the Australian labour market was a lot stronger than New Zealand's and had been for some time.
That was helping to drive stronger population growth there, too.
"We tend to find with net migration is that it is inversely correlated with the unemployment rate differential.
"So with our unemployment rate now at 5.3 percent versus the 4.3 percent there, that reflects a sizeable difference in terms of labour market demand and conditions. Usually our unemployment rate would be a bit lower than Australia's."
He said the situation was likely to continue for at least the next six months.
"Our forecast for the unemployment rate suggests another increase in the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter, which is where we're sitting now in reality. So 5.4 percent. And my colleagues in Australia have got much lower unemployment rate forecasts, peaking at around about 4.5 percent there and thereabouts."
It should start to narrow towards the middle of next year, he said.
"That's when we are expecting to see much stronger employment growth."
People were being paid more in Australia, he said.
"The per capita income level in Australia is stronger than here. So on average, that would be the case. Quite difficult, I think, to make direct comparisons.
"The tax and superannuation differences are significant between New Zealand and Australia. So you have to sort of look a little bit beyond the actual wage rate or the monthly pay, I think. That's true… also, you have to remember that, you know, the cost of living is also higher in Australia, particularly if you want to buy a house.
"If you were going to move from, say, Auckland to Sydney, for example, you would have to price in a noticeably higher cost for accommodation. And certainly, if you expected to buy a house, you would probably find that you would need to trade down relative to what you think you could afford in New Zealand. "
Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.
