How Australia replaced productivity growth with immigration

Defenders of mass migration often argue that Australia’s ‘skilled’ immigration system boosts the nation’s productivity because migrants are more skilled than locals and earn higher incomes.

However, when you examine the macroeconomic data, you quickly discover that Australia’s labour productivity growth has collapsed alongside the strong rise in immigration, which contradicts their claims.

‘Big Australia’ immigration began in the mid-2000s and has now been running for more than 20 years, with only a brief pause during the pandemic, and the past four years’ migration has been especially large: