August Year New Record For Professional Exodus

Thursday 21st Sep 2000 Penny Webster Media Release -- Other

Today’s August statistics show that the exodus of professionals has continued with 3,663 more professionals leaving than arriving, said ACT Immigration spokesman Penny Webster.

“New Zealand can not sustain this serious on going loss of skilled New Zealanders and their capital to other countries.

“The Government, and particularly the Deputy Prime Minister, must stop trying to gloss over the deepening loss of human and economic capital, and begin taking steps to reverse this exodus.

“The year to July was our previous worst figure, and was fudged by the Government. The year to August has set a new record for the loss of professionals. We simply can not sustain over 200 New Zealanders leaving the country per day. These New Zealanders, if they stayed, would contribute almost $1.7 billion dollars of income to the economy each year.

“The disturbing factor in this equation is that young families are leaving the country. When over ten thousand children below the age of 14 have left the country since the election something is seriously wrong.

"The population is ageing, families are leaving and our talented and highly skilled youth are deserting us," said Penny Webster.

ENDS

Specific net professional departures for the year to the end of August include:

395 General Managers;

967 Specialist Managers;

181 Computer Professionals;

149 Architects and Engineers.

217 Primary and Early Childhood Professionals;

197 Physical Science and Engineering Technicians; Professionals;

695 Finance and Associate Sales Professionals.

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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