Westpac predicts the wave of immigration will more than offset the Covid border closure by Christmas
Westpac predicts Australia’s recent wave of immigration will offset the Covid international border closure by Christmas.
A record 454,400 migrants moved to Australia in the year to March, with annual population growth already among the highest in the developed world.
The big jump in new arrivals means Australia is expected to take in 240,000 more foreigners this year than the annual average before the pandemic.
Put another way, that would be double the annual average of permanent and long-term overseas arrivals before the pandemic.
The Australian border was closed to skilled migrants and international students from March 2020 to December 2021.
This caused the first quarterly decline in population since 1916, with the number of people in Australia falling by 4,200 in the three months to September 2020.
For the first time since World War I, the number of people moving abroad exceeded the birth rate.
But since then, immigration has increased dramatically, with overseas arrivals accounting for more than 80 percent of Australia’s population increase.
Westpac predicts Australia’s recent wave of immigration will offset Covid border closures by Christmas (pictured is a crowd at Sydney Olympic Park)
Westpac analyst Ryan Wells said the big jump in immigration since Australia reopened in 2021 would see the number of foreign arrivals offset Covid border closures by Christmas.
“By the end of this year, migration will fully catch up with the losses observed during the Covid period and surpass the pre-Covid trajectory,” he said.
The current level of net overseas migration is well above the annual average of 235,000 in the five years before the pandemic began in 2020.
Westpac predicts a net annual immigration rate of 475,000 in 2023, followed by 375,000 in 2024 and 275,000 in 2025.
“The migration-driven recovery in population growth has shown significant strength so far this year and it appears we are approaching its peak,” Mr Wells said.
Compared to the pre-pandemic average of 235,000, that would produce an “excess” gain of 240,000 in 2023, 140,000 in 2024 and 40,000 in 2025.
Treasury budget documents in May forecast that 1.5 million migrants would move to Australia in the five years to July 2027, including a record 400,000 migrants. in 2022-2023 and 315,000 in 2023-2024.
Australia’s population is growing at an annual rate of 2.2 percent, which is among the highest in the developed world, and the total number has now exceeded 26.5 million.
The rate of population growth is approaching levels last seen during the post-war era, when Australia saw a 3.1 percent annual increase in the number of new arrivals in 1949, after a slow start in the years after troops returned home had returned.
The Business Council of Australia, which represents major banks, supermarkets and major corporations, is a vocal supporter of high immigration to fill skills shortages, while unemployment remains low at 3.7 percent.
Westpac expects the unemployment rate to reach 4.7 percent by the end of 2024, which would be the highest level since October 2021, when Australia was closed to foreigners and Sydney and Melbourne were still in lockdown.
A record 454,400 migrants moved to Australia in the year to March, with annual population growth already among the highest in the developed world. The Australian border was closed to migrants and international students from March 2020 to December 2021 (pictured shows Melbourne during lockdowns in July 2021)