In our October 2024 Chart of the Month, we explore the role of peer to peer (P2P) accommodation around the country, finding that P2P makes up more than a third of guest nights in some areas, and not in the tourism hotspots that you might expect. Read

We are introducing a new indicator for first home buyer activity – First Home Loans. This article explores first home buyer activity in the housing market from a few different angles and introduces our new measure. Read

Stats NZ released their latest subnational population estimates, providing us with an annual glimpse into how New Zealand’s population is growing around the country. In this article, we highlight the overall trends of the 2024 estimates and pull out interesting results from specific cities or districts. Read

Stats NZ released the first detailed tranche of 2023 Census data today, including detail on individuals and households down to a small area level. In this article, we share ten insights from the 2023 Census. Read

Housing affordability is an important issue affecting the wellbeing of households. Recently, we dove deeper on housing affordability for two Waikato Region clients. This article explores several new ways of exploring local housing affordability to inform decision making. Read

The challenges of structural ageing and population decline are set to shine through again with subnational population estimates due next month. This article explores previous periods of population decline – looking at how effective migration is at holding back decline, how we should plan for decline, and what has happened to areas which have experienced population decline in our history. Read

In this article Nick Brunsdon explores the topic of population loyalty, by looking at Stats NZ’s Administrative Population Census (APC) data on usual residence one and five years ago. Read

Last week Stats NZ released the first tranche of data from the 2023 Census, an exciting milestone for anyone with a thirst for regional or socioeconomic data. With the prior Census held in 2018, this represents the first Census data since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we dive into the first tranche of data, explain why the good stuff is yet to come, and raise a note of caution for population comparisons with the first tranche of data. Read

This year seems to be shaping up as an annus horribilis for employment, as we receive seemingly hour-by-hour updates on job losses. In this article, we start by looking at just how bad our previous bad years for employment were, see how significant this year’s announced job losses are at a macro scale, and how these losses play out for different industries. Finally, we touch on our expectations for employment growth and the role of net migration as a relief valve. Read

Migration is a lot like rain. When we receive a lot of migration (or rain), having prepared and invested for it, and directed it into the most needed areas, it can make us all better off. Conversely, receiving more migration (or rain) than we are ready for, in the wrong places, can make things worse. Knowing it could rain but never buying a raincoat seems to be an unfortunately good analogy for how we currently seem to approach migration. Read