Fitch: Lower immigration will drive up wages

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The ABC’s Gareth Hutchens has posted Fitch research claiming that the cut in immigration will lead to a tighter Australian labour market and stronger wage growth:

[Fitch] said Australia has historically relied on immigration for growth, but since the mid-2000s net overseas migration has picked up sharply…

In fact, between 2000 and 2019, Australia experienced the fastest population gains among large developed markets.

And for the last 10 years, population growth has been the main source of growth for Australia’s economy from a supply-side perspective.

“Indeed, Australia has seen a steady deterioration in underlying productivity performance, which was the main growth engine prior to the mid-2000s,” they said…

The Fitch economists said Australia’s decision to close its international borders brought net overseas migration to a standstill in 2020 and 2021…

It’s had a profound impact on the labour market.

“There is little doubt that Australia’s tight labour market and rising job vacancies in the wake of the pandemic is in large part due to the fall in net overseas migration,” they said.

“Against a backdrop of supportive macro policy settings, labour demand has increased while the largest source of labour supply — net overseas migration — has dried up”…

Overall, they estimated Australia would experience a net overseas migration-induced labour supply shortfall of roughly 275,000 people across 2020 and 2021.

They assume migration will see a gradual recovery after this year to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

But they don’t think the shortfall in migrants in 2020 and 2021 — the people who would have come to Australia if the pandemic never happened — will be fully recovered over the next five years…

At any rate, what will our smaller population growth mean for economic growth?

According to the logic of this “supply-side” analysis, the negative shock to net overseas migration will hit Australia’s potential growth rate.

It will cause GDP to be 1.9 per cent smaller by 2026 compared to its pre-pandemic path, according to Fitch’s economists…

According to Fitch’s economists, it means Australia’s economy will quickly run into capacity constraints in coming years.

They said with fewer workers in the economy, and record-high job vacancies, wage pressures were more likely to build.

“The stoppage of new foreign arrivals since 2020 … clearly dried up the supply of labour,” they said.

“We believe the dislocation between labour demand and supply — unwitnessed in recent history — will eventually translate into higher wage growth, probably from mid-2022 when the economy will be in full swing.”

Economists’ obsession with aggregate economic growth must stop. Australia’s economy grew reasonably in the decade leading up to the pandemic (i.e. the 2010s) thanks to extreme immigration. But once you divide that growth among the extra people, per capita growth fell to levels not seen since the early 1980s recession:

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In fact, the 2010s was the worst decade for per capita GDP growth in 60 years:

The 2010s was also the worst decade for per capita household income growth in 60 years of data:

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What’s the point of importing hundreds of thousands of migrants every year if it does not increase the material wellbeing of the incumbent population and erodes broader living standards by:

  • Suppressing wage growth;
  • Forcing Australians to live in smaller and more expensive housing;
  • Placing increased burden on infrastructure, driving up congestion costs;
  • Degrading the natural environment; and
  • Increasing inequality?
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The only groups that are negatively impacted by lower immigration are those that have already hoarded assets and capital, namely the already entrenched, wealthy and corporate interests.

Sadly, those are also the groups that pull our policy makers’ strings. The wellbeing of ordinary Australians is ignored entirely.

About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.