Name: What’s Driving This Gen Z Exodus? | CNN Creators
Uploaded: 2026-02-07T17:14:57.000Z
Duration: 8 min 52 s
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So, Nat, last time I was sat on this show, we saw this little video of you walking along a beach from somewhere on the other side.

When you were on vacation, where were you working?

So I went home for Christmas, Australia, and

decided to just head across to New Zealand to do a couple of stories.

And one of the stories we looked into was that a lot of gen zers are moving from New Zealand to Australia.

And why that's kind of different is because a lot of them are moving permanently.

Like, they don't necessarily have plans to move back.

We're here in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, because we've heard that a lot of people are moving overseas, especially to Australia, and

One of the people who is going in February, her name is Georgia.

So we're going to go have a chat to her now and find out a little bit about why she's making the move.

Georgia Waring is a student trying to break into the creative industries.

With no success finding work locally, she started planning to leave New Zealand altogether.

Talk me through what you're gonna take and why.

So this is like the one drawer I still have to go.

Like, it's hard when it's been like five years worth of fashion and clothing.

I wrote an article in 2024 and I was really proud of it.

It was a response to an existing article and it was based on a local event, so I sent it out to a bunch of New Zealand magazines, especially online ones.

Didn't hear a single response back from any of them.

And after following up, I then sent it to an Australian magazine and within 24 hours, they replied, they posted it and they paid me.

So it was this very clear distinction and that taught me so much that not only is my work wanted over there, but

If you're looking to grow and expand your career, break in, break in.

It makes way more sense to move somewhere where that's more welcome and accepted.

Around 200 New Zealanders are flying out of the country every day.

They're being driven by a high cost of living at home and the higher salaries of neighbouring Australia where New Zealanders have the right to live and work.

StatsNZ said almost 44,000 people who left the country last year were between the ages of 18 and 30.

And the most recent data from the agency puts the median weekly income in New Zealand at the equivalent of US$579, while Australia's median weekly income is around US$1,005.

According to the country's Bureau of Statistics, 24 year old Hayden Fisher moved from Wellington to Sydney at the end of 2024.

It felt like, I don't know, even as I, like worked harder and I, you know, got better jobs and made more money, it still felt like things weren't working out.

I was still losing money, I was still, you know, putting groceries on, off to pay, that type of thing.

And yeah, I found like just being a normal retail sales employee in New South Wales was a higher paying job than being the general manager of a bookstore in Wellington.

And how does that make you feel like when you left home?

The people being prioritized were not young people.

There were all these signals that they didn't really want us here.

And more and more people I knew took off to Melbourne or Sydney or London or wherever.

Along with stagnant wages, the price of houses and rent in New Zealand has increased exponentially in the last 20 years.

Rents went up by about 83% while house prices tripled, according to New Zealand's Reserve Bank.

Independent politics and economics journalist Bernard Hickey says that's the main issue driving young New Zealanders away.

The problem at the heart of everything, housing is just too expensive.

New Zealand has some of the most stressed renters in the world.

We have the highest proportion of people in the lowest quintile of earners.

So the poorest group, the highest proportion of people in that group.

We're paying more than 40% of their disposable income in rent.

We're the third most stressed group of renters in the world behind Colombia and Chile.

It's more expensive to rent here than in the United States and way more expensive than in Australia.

We don't want to even talk about it in public.

So a lot of our politicians have stopped talking about trying to solve the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand.

In fact, no one from New Zealand's ruling National Party or their coalition Partners act or New Zealand first would be interviewed for this story.

But New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has acknowledged the economic strains being felt in all areas of the country.

Look, things have been tough, real tough.

Mums and dads and businesses and New Zealanders up and down the country have actually struggled to get ahead.

For Georgia, the decision to move is bittersweet.

What are you going to miss most about New Zealand?

I was really happy though, when I did tell my mum about moving, where she went actually, like, go for it.

That sounds like a great opportunity for you.

Like, that's why it's so convenient to be an Aussie.

When you were spending time with Georgia, even off camera, because I know you're with her for a while, did you get the sense that she was like looking forward to moving or was it something like this is just what it's come to?

And I kind of have because she mentioned like leaving her family.

So like, how, how was she feeling about it?

Well, I think it's like everyone moves for different reasons, right?

You can't like blanket rule on everyone saying it's all financial.

And I think the vibe I got from Georgia after spending a few hours with her was very much like she was excited to go to a bigger city and get work that would pay her a price, like a wage that she wanted to be paid, whereas she couldn't get that in New Zealand.

But then like speaking to Hayden, what he said that I didn't include, but I actually like it.

He said he didn't feel like he had any choice but to leave because he was like, it's really hard to love a country that doesn't love you back.

Which is a pretty tough thing to hear from a 24 year old.

I feel like this is really kind of a global trend as well.

Like more and more young people are leaving the country they're from.