2024 population trends
It couldn't have come out all that much later in the year, but the Treasurer released the 2024 Population Statement last week.
Let's take a very brief look at a few of the highlights.
After a couple of years of unprecedented population growth totalling around 1.1 million, population growth is projected to 'slow' to around +444,000 in 2025, before - claims the government - normalising to lower levels from 2026 onwards.
The overall stated goal is to tackle the ageing of the Aussie population with an ongoing aggressive immigration program, with the number of temporary visa holders hitting a record high of 2.4 million this year.
The bulk of the future population increase is expected to be generated via net immigration.
Looking further ahead, even though the rate of population growth is projected to slow, the total population is expected to balloon to above 41 million (from around 27 million today).
After an unusual few years - where the population first moved outwards and then began to reverse towards the capital cities in 2024 - looking ahead capital city population growth is expected to grow at around twice the pace of regional Australia.
In New South Wales and Victoria 85 to 90 per cent or more of immigration heads directly for the capital cities.
Queensland has been the one state to grow its regional cities significantly, but even there Greater Brisbane is expected to become home to over half of the state's population for the first time since 1978.
In turn this has led to some skills shortages in regional Australia, which need to be addressed, potentially via some deliberate policy shifts (something I wrote about in far more detail in the Quarterly Essay, published in bookstores this year).
Over the course of the decade ahead, Sydney's population is expected to balloon from 5.3 million to 6¼ million, with Greater Melbourne set to overtake Sydney as the most populous city fairly soon thereafter.
The housing shortage is thus likely to continue through the remainder of the decade.
The Population Statement notes that the global population is expected to peak at 10.3 billion in 2084...but population growth in Australia is projected to continue, which just about sums it all up.
MOAR!
You can read the Population Statement here.
