Population growth to lift dwelling demand

Earlier this week, the ABS noted that Australia’s population had climbed to 22.9 million people.

This growth was largely (60 per cent) driven by overseas migration.

RP Data national research director Tim Lawless said this figure equates to a 1.75 per cent growth in Australia’s population over the December 2012 quarter.

Victoria recorded the highest level of population growth across the states and territories in the 2012 calendar year, with an additional 99,548 people now residing in the state.

Overseas migration accounted for 56.4 per cent of the state’s growth; however, a larger than average proportion of Victoria’s population growth was due to natural increase (41.8 per cent), while a very small proportion can be attributed to interstate migration flows.

Queensland recorded the second largest number of new residents at 92,453, followed by New South Wales where there were 90,441 more residents over the year.

Mr Lawless said the release of the Australian demographic series over 2013 will be an interesting flow of data to monitor.

“The last time we saw a weakening labour market was back in 2008. This result created an adjustment to migration policy around migration intake which resulted in a slump in population growth,” he said.

“With labour markets likely to see a rise in the national rate of unemployment and jobs creation running below trend, we may once again start to see renewed pressure to reduce migration quotas in response to the softening labour market.

“Looking at the more timely overseas arrivals and departures data, it appears that long-term and permanent arrival numbers from overseas are starting to level off at near to historic highs.”