By Rob Taylor
CANBERRA, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Australia's long exodus is slowing, with expatriates flocking home as high-paying jobs in Britain, the United States and Europe wither in the financial gloom, and Australia looks to ride out the global downturn.
Travel-hungry Australians have for years sought job opportunities overseas, filling positions in British pubs and European ski fields, or boosting careers in the financial heartlands of New York, London and Tokyo.
But with the United States, Japan and much of Europe now in recession, unemployment rising and the United Nations estimating world growth will more than halve to 1 percent next year, Australians living overseas are becoming harder to find.
"When you get conditions as they are at the moment, that's going to push people back," civil engineer Matt McQuaid told the Courier-Mail newspaper as he packed bags in London for a job in Australia's Brisbane.
Until the financial tsunami struck, money lured Australia's brightest minds away. An HSBC survey in July showing around 40 percent of Aussie expats earned above 100,000 pounds ($149,000) a year, a stratosphere above average friends at home.
All that cash jetting back could breath new life into the flagging Australian property market, with some real estate agents pinning hopes on expats sparking a surge of homebuying.
"There is strong interest from expatriate Australians, many of them banking and finance professionals, who are looking to return home to escape the credit crunch in places like London and Singapore," said Jennifer Nielsen of Loan Market Group.
The number of people permanently leaving Australia doubled from 35,000 in 1998 to 72,000 last year. Most took up opportunities in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore or China.
The bulk were in their working prime, aged 30-39, according to Australia's official Bureau of Statistics.
But in the three months from July until September this year, 12,474 highly skilled expatriates moved home permanently, an increase of near 7 percent from the previous year, according to immigration figures obtained by Reuters.
British reports said departures from the UK were up 35 percent from 2005.
Australia's centre-left government and the IMF expect Australia to largely ride out the worst of the global slowdown, helped by lower but continuing Asian demand for resource exports.
And while many developed countries slip into reverse, Australia expects to keep growing in 2009, although with expansion pulling back to an anaemic 2 percent from above 4 pct, and unemployment ticking up from 33-year lows to around 5-6 percent.
Adding to the attraction of home for expats is the sharp fall of the Australian dollar from near parity to the U.S. currency only months ago to around 63 cents now, driving up the worth of expat savings.
Britain's The Times newspaper earlier this month pleaded with Australians and New Zealanders in an editorial to stay in the UK and help bolster the economy. Around 400,000 Australians live in Britain.
"With the roof fixed in the good times, it is not surprising that many bright young Australians have remembered that back at home, the sun is always shining," the paper said. (Editing by Jerry Norton)