The population increased by about 11 people for every 1000 living here, thanks to migration, slightly down from a peak of 13.8 in 2016.

Migration added a net 56,000 people to New Zealand's population in the year to June, Stats NZ says.

That meant the population increased by about 11 people for every 1000 living here, slightly down from a peak of 13.8 in 2016.

New Zealand is well ahead of many other countries.

In the United States, the net migration rate was three per 1000 people in 2018. Germany was 4.8, Britain 3.5 and Australia 9.5.

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"Countries like New Zealand and Ireland tend to have larger swings in net migration rates because they have small populations. In contrast, countries with larger populations tend to have low net migration rates and smaller swings in net migration rate," Stats NZ population indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.

In the year ended April 2019, annual net migration was provisionally estimated at 55,700 compared with 49,600 in the previous year.

"Annual net migration has ranged between 48,000 and 64,000 since 2015, and remains at historically high levels," Islam said.

"Migrant arrivals are higher than when net migration peaked at almost 64,000 in the year ended July 2016."

Migrant departures were 92,200, up 1400 from the previous year.

Six hundred foreign nurses have been drafted into NZ aged care over the past two years, Immigration figures show.

Migrant arrivals and departures include the flows of New Zealand citizens, as well as the flows of non-New Zealand citizens, as both affect the population living in New Zealand.

ASB economist Mike Jones said the numbers were higher than the bank, and Reserve Bank, had been expecting.

"The net migration 'second wind' has now been running for 14 months," Jones said.

"Our assumption is that net immigration will continue to trend lower over the next few years, a view the Reserve Bank broadly shares. Indeed, falling permanent and long-term migration is a key factor restraining consumer spending, house price inflation, and labour supply in the Reserve Bank's outlook. So the prospect of migration continuing to hold up is a clear risk to this outlook."

A change to the way migration is measured had raised concerns about the reliability of data but Jones said that was now being worked through.

"Reported migration data starts to become reliable from around six months prior. This being so we can be a little more confident that the second wind is in play and not just a data anomaly."