Prof. Paul Spoonley - Demographics are changing, here is how it will affect your business

Hi, I'm Paul Spoonley. I'm a distinguished professor at Massey University, and I head up one of the largest research projects looking at demographic, social, and economic change in New Zealand.

COVID has been an interesting moment in our history in terms of interrupting our normal migration. Over the last few years, we've had net gains of between 70,000 and 80,000 net migrants coming to this country - that's just evaporated, and it's not likely to return very soon at least. But what it will do is exacerbate a couple of things that are really important to understand.

We've got declining fertility. The number of people exiting our schools and entering the labour force or further education is already dropping, and that will get worse over the coming decades. We've also got increasingly ageing population. The number of people reaching 65 is increasing. In 2013 it was 600,000 people over the age of 65, and soon it will be 1.2 million. So, as employers, you are going to face quite an interesting demographic challenge. The number of people available to work in New Zealand will decrease.