For young Brits it is seen as a bucket list destination with beautiful scenery an outdoor lifestyle, but locals from the same beautiful island are leaving in droves. With a population of just five million on a land mass not much bigger than the UK, official figures show more than 1,500 Kiwis are emigrating from New Zealand every week with a declining economy, unemployment and gang crime cited as reasons. In the year to June, 80,200 of its citizens moved abroad, nearly twice the amount before the Covid -19 pandemic.
In the same period just 24,900 of them returned, according to Stats NZ, its official data agency, giving a net loss of 55,300 people. Economic reasons have seen more than half of them heading for neighbouring Australia. Official migration figures show Kiwis aged 18 to 30 make up 40 percent of those moving abroad.
However, now many are in older age groups, with children and mortgages. Nigel McKee, 34, moved to Perth with his wife and two children from Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands in late 2022. He is being paid double what he earnt as an engineer in New Zealand.
One of the reasons was a surge in gang-related crime. He told the Sunday Express: "I’m a big bloke but I couldn’t go to the pub without worrying about getting into a punch-up with a gang member. We didn’t feel safe because of the gang presence.
It was nuts. "There is a general consensus among my friends back home in New Zealand that the grass must be greener elsewhere.” Jordon Boorer, 32, has moved .