Australian residents have double the foreign born population than the U.S. in terms of percentage of total population and their foreign-born population is growing much faster than ours.
The Australian population, per its government report issued on June 27, grew 8.8% between 2011 and 2016 to 23.7 million. Compare that to the 3.8% U.S. population growth in the same period. Had U.S. grown as fast as Australia since 2011, we would have today 15 million more people and 10 million more workers.
1.3 million new migrants arrived in Australia since 2011, with China (191,000) and India (163,000) being the most common countries of birth. That is equivalent to about 75% of growth in population. Compare that with the growth of the foreign-born population in the U.S. of about one million a year, equivalent to 40% of the growth of the total U.S. population since 2011.
A quarter of Australian residents are foreign born, compared to 13% of the U.S. population. For the first time in its history, the majority of foreign-born persons Australia are from Asia, not Europe. Today, Mexican and other Latin American born immigration are probably half of our immigrant population while Asians comprise about 28%. But recent Asian immigrants outnumber Latin American immigrants.