Migrants earn 13% less than the median Australian income

The common trope that migrants work more, are better skilled and earn more than the local population has surely been demolished by Monday’s migrant jobs and income data release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

This release shows that “migrants held 26.3% of all jobs in Australia in 2019-20 (5.3 million jobs, worked by 3.6 million migrants)… below their 29.8% share of Australia’s population”.

Moreover, “the median annual personal income for migrants was $45,351 in 2019-20, compared with $52,338 for the population as a whole”:

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.