Stephen Jacobi: Immigrants bring skills and economic sustainability

Stephen Jacobi

Despite the growing evidence that we now compete in a competitive global market for skilled immigrants, policy-making seems deliberately designed to keep the overall population base at little more that its present level.

None of our political parties seem willing to address the reality that we need a clearly thought-through pro-immigration policy to sustain economic growth.

We should be prepared to envisage New Zealand with a population of six million or higher by the end of the century.

Quite simply, we have a chronic skills shortage across most economic sectors, which, if our economy is going to continue to grow, can be solved only by immigration.

In addition we need a larger domestic market for New Zealand-made products to offset the reliance of many industries on exports.

Unfortunately, recent data from Statistics New Zealand predicts that, while migration is continuing to show a modest net gain, the balance is expected to reach zero by the end of this year.

Forest and wood-processing industries account for 4 per cent of gross domestic product, and combine to be the third-largest export earner, with international sales of more than $3.2 billion. New Zealand's sustainable, planted forest resource covers 1.8 million hectares, and the industry has an annual output of more than $5 billion. The sector directly employs 26,600 workers, and many thousands more indirectly, and is frequently undermined by a mismatch of personnel and available work.

With other sectors, such as construction, it is deeply concerned that immigration policy has proven incapable of supplying it with desperately needed skilled workers to upgrade and strengthen the industrial base.

Of equal importance, policies are not delivering a stable domestic market for New Zealand-made products.

Current trends suggest an expectation from public policy-makers that the population will grow to about 4.4 million by 2021, to just 4.6 million by 2061, and fall back to 4.2 million by 2101.

If this expectation is fulfilled, we are doomed to remain a small domestic economy exposed to the vagaries of international markets and the uncertainties of fluctuating exchange rates.

We need to aim much higher.

Many sectors, not just the forest industries, are facing shortages of traditional tradespeople and technology specialists, while other professionals are being lured overseas to greener pastures, especially to Australia, where wages, conditions and now even tax rates appear much more attractive than in New Zealand.

Training programmes are having difficulty keeping pace with the attrition rate. Employers need all the help they can get.

There are problems with the capacity of the immigration system in terms of the approvals process, political concerns about the origin of migrants, and a significant mismatch of skilled workers and business needs.

One option would be for the Immigration Service to involve business more in the framing of policy, such as happened with the horticulture industry.

Public attitudes to immigration are also important. New Zealand is a country built on immigration and foreign investment. Immigrants should be welcomed for the contribution they have historically made and will continue to make to the building of the nation.

While we should not compromise our enviable quality of life and environment, we need to reach a consensus on the level of net migration needed to sustain economic growth.

No one understands the principle of sustainability better than the forestry sector. As election year unfolds, it is eager to see what the major political parties have to offer in developing a credible and sustainable immigration policy.

* Stephen Jacobi is the chief executive of the Forest Industries Council.