CANBERRA: The return of international migration has propelled Australia’s population growth to its highest level in two years, official data showed on Wednesday.
According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the country’s population stood at 25,912,614 at the end of March 2022, Xinhua news agency reports.
This represents an increase of around 239,800 people – or 0.9% – from March 2021. The figure marks Australia’s highest population growth over a 12-month period since September 2020.
By comparison, in the 12 months to March 2021, the population grew by 0.15% under strict Covid-19 border restrictions.
Of the 239,800 people added to the population, net migration overseas (NOM) accounted for 109,600 – or 45.7%.
“After two years of generally little or no population growth, overseas migration is again a significant contributor to Australia’s population growth, accounting for almost half of the growth in the year to March 2022. “said Beidar Cho, director of demography at ABS, in a statement.
The number of migrant arrivals to Australia increased by 183% from the previous year to 320,000, leading to a strong recovery in NOM.
However, the net inflow of migrants remained below pre-pandemic levels, which ranged from 238,000 to 260,000.
There were 309,300 births and 179,100 deaths in Australia in the year to March 2022.
The number of deaths was 10% higher than in 2020-2021.
Separate national census data also released by the ABS on Wednesday revealed that Australia’s indigenous population had reached nearly one million.
In June 2021, the country’s indigenous population was 984,000, an increase of 23.2% in more than five years.