AUSTRALIA’S RECORD MIGRATION SPURT
Australia is often called the land of migrants. In the year 2016, the country lived up to its billing by opening its doors to the most number of migrants ever in recorded history. Its population has also gone up by 350,000 people. The article has more details.
Net Overseas Migration, NOM for short, is one of the main reasons that Australia’s population increased by 350,000 in the last one year to reach 24.2 million by the end of September 2016.
According to the latest figures released by the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics), the NOM figures have seen the sharpest growth in the last four years.
Population is generally calculated by adding ‘natural increase’ to ‘Net Overseas Migration’. Natural increase is just the value calculated by subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births. This year, natural increase contributed to 155,000 additional people, arrived at from 315,000 births and 159,500 deaths.
The remaining 193,200 people have come in thanks to Net Overseas Migration.
This is the record number of people who have arrived in Australia in any given year. The total population growth is still under the record set by 2009, though; however, Australia has never seen such a high number of migrants entering its shores.
Victoria and New South Wales are the most popular destinations for migrants, growing by 13% and 11% respectively. Queensland was the biggest growth area though in terms of NOM, with a growth of 19% during this measured year.
