Our goals and actions

The goals and actions below will help to achieve our vision by ensuring government, communities, employers and individuals overcome challenges employers face to find the workers they need and to ensure New Zealanders have the skills they need to obtain jobs.

Work to deliver the actions set out in the Employment Action Plan will be led by 4 lead agencies: the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), the Ministry of Education (MOE), and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). These agencies will work with one another and engage with businesses, other government agencies, local government, Māori and communities to deliver on these actions and support New Zealanders at many points across their life.

The work programme priorities represented within these goals and actions are not the only areas that support the labour market. Other Ministers and agencies, particularly those with a focus on population groups that face additional barriers to engage with the labour market, will also continue to undertake their core work programmes. This includes labour market programmes and projects such as:

• the Ministry of Youth Development’s time-limited Ākonga Youth Development Community Fund (supporting at-risk young people aged 12 to 21 years to stay engaged in their education journey through community providers),
• the Ministry for Ethnic Communities use of Ethnic Community Development Fund grants to support community-led initiatives that help ethnic communities with employment-readiness and to strengthen their employment networks,
• the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha stewarding strategic disability policy across government to support better outcomes for disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori (Māori disabled people), including by providing advice to other agencies responsible for employment outcomes for disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori,
• the Ministry for Pacific People’s Tupu Aotearoa (connecting Pacific people with local providers to access work or learning opportunities) and Toloa (supporting Pacific people in STEAM pathways) programmes,
• the Te Puni Kōkiri employment programme supporting employers to develop, mentor and train their permanent Māori staff at all career stages into higher-skilled and higher paid roles, and
• the Ministry for Women’s work to support businesses to reduce the gender pay gap in New Zealand.

The Government has also set key targets for Ministers and agencies focussed on improved results in key areas of health, education, law and order, work, housing and the environment – all of which will support the labour market, help more New Zealanders into work and improve the lives of New Zealanders.

Government targets (April 2024)(external link) — Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Helping people get into work quickly and reducing persistent disadvantage

Our Goal

Help people get into work quickly and stay in work, reducing negative impact of job-loss and time on benefit for people and the economy.

New Zealand’s labour market works well in some areas, with businesses, students, and workers engaging with the system and identifying and working towards their needs without needing extra support or guidance. The Government’s responsibility is to provide effective services where the labour market is not functioning appropriately, including for disabled people, women, Māori, Pacific peoples, migrant and ethnic communities, older workers and youth. The Government’s focus is on supporting people into employment and reducing benefit dependency, given the negative impacts of benefit dependency on youth and households with children, as well as tightening migration settings at the low-skilled end where there are opportunities to help New Zealanders to get into work.

The surge in welfare dependency requires early and decisive action, by setting out clear expectations around employment, delivering services where and when they can make the most difference, and the use of benefit sanctions where people are not meeting their obligations. MSD will use an evidence-based approach to understand what works, and for whom. These actions will help more New Zealanders into work, providing greater opportunities to improve their lives, support their physical and mental health and ensure employers have the skills they need.

Actions

1. Use community providers, clear obligations and targeted incentives to get young people off welfare and into work. (MSD)

   • Support 4,000 additional young jobseekers in phone-based case management including by providing individual job plans.
   • Implement community-based job coaches for young jobseekers.

2. Ensure the welfare system is focussed on effectively supporting people who can work into jobs. (MSD)

   • Target MSD case management to specific cohorts to support the Jobseeker target.
   • Introduce new approaches to supporting jobseekers, including seminars supporting job profiles/CVs/training and new work check-ins for jobseekers in their first 2 weeks on benefit and after 6 months.
   • Clearly communicate to clients that they must comply with their obligations or risk being sanctioned, by implementing the Traffic Light System and considering options for non-financial sanctions, including community work experience and money management.

3. Address persistent disadvantage, by exploring a focus on key points in people’s lives when interventions are more likely to be effective. (MSD)

   • Develop a life-course-derived approach to help reduce persistent disadvantage in the labour market.
   • Provide advice identifying medium to long-term work to reduce persistent disadvantage.
   • Publish a refreshed Child and Youth Strategy.

Strengthening the role of employers and leveraging government support to improve skills development

Our goal

Support people to have the skills they need to succeed in work, increasing earning potential and reducing benefit in-flows and encouraging continued upskilling in-work for improved productivity and resilience.

Skills development is important to promote productivity and boost people’s employment and earnings prospects. Developing skills is beneficial to individuals, employers, industry, communities and the wider economy.

Skills development starts before children start school and continues throughout life. Getting the basics right provides the foundation for people to be equipped with choices to take up further learning, develop specialised skills through vocational and tertiary education, and take up industry-specific training in the workplace.

Getting this system right will benefit employees by supporting workers to upskill and promoting better employment outcomes, as well as employers by helping firms overcome skill shortages and lifting overall performance. A strong skills development system promotes labour force participation, improves economic mobility and resilience, and increases incomes. In addition to the economic benefits, there is also evidence that raising skills improves social and political participation, community connectedness, social trust, participation in volunteering, and health outcomes .

The Government has a role to ensure that the skills development system runs smoothly by providing public education for children, funding tertiary education and supporting in-work training, including through active labour market programmes and facilitating specialised industry-led training. Key challenges in this system include:

• Our school system is not delivering for all students. Declining achievement in the core subjects of maths, reading and writing means that too many students are leaving school without the knowledge and skills that everyone needs to succeed. A good education and clear and informed pathways into post-school work and learning are crucially important to young people’s future success. Children at school today are New Zealand’s future leaders, entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers and lawyers. Receiving a world-class education not only sets children up for success, it sets New Zealand up for success – economically and socially.
• Vocational education and training needs to support people to develop the skills New Zealand needs. To be responsive and targeted to the education needs of learners and their communities, we need to restore decision-making at the regional level for local vocational educational institutions, ensuring providers are well-placed now and into the future. Vocational education and training is the main alternative to degree-level study, offering hands-on learning and a direct connection to work. This is particularly important for young people making the transition from school into the workplace and for mature women wanting to re enter the workforce.
• Barriers to investment undermine employers’ investment in in-work training. In-work training is a useful mechanism to support better outcomes for both businesses and employees to overcome persistent skills shortages and improve resilience to change.

Actions

1. Develop tools to support the provision of in-work-training, and improve investment in training-related active labour market programmes. (MBIE/MSD)
2. Reform the vocational education and training system to ensure it responds to the needs of learners, industries and communities. (MOE/TEC)
3. Refresh the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa so they promote knowledge-rich, clearly defined pathways to further education or work, grounded in the science of learning. (MOE)
4. Implement evidence-based instruction in literacy and mathematics. (MOE)

Towards an Inclusive Economy – 2001 [PDF, 339 KB](external link) — New Zealand Treasury

Skills for Social Progress: The Power of Social and Emotional Skills – 2015(external link) — OECD.org

Coordinated responses to skills shortages and planning for future skills needs

Our goal

Improve employers’ access to skills, employees’ access to jobs and enable students and employees to make informed decisions about investing in their skills.

Mismatch of skills, persistent skills shortages and reliance on migration are interlinked. For people to get into work, jobs often must be available in a location the person is in and the person must have the right skills for the job.
While some people may be able to move to other locations, that will not always be possible given housing, family, cultural or other considerations. Regions and cities both need to have opportunities for people to make a living if people are to get a job. However, this is not currently the case everywhere. Unemployment varies greatly between regions, with rates currently much higher than the national 4.0% average in the Bay of Plenty (4.9%) and much lower in Otago (3.2%) . While recent increases in unemployment and benefit use are consistent with weaker economic conditions, there are also higher levels of unemployment among people with lower qualifications  and regional variations in levels of benefit dependency.
Limited access to capital can inhibit the infrastructure development required for regional growth and resilience. Targeted investment by the Government in regional infrastructure projects that increase the performance of businesses can help lift productivity and grow regional economies. It will also improve New Zealand’s resilience by supporting regional businesses and communities to handle and recover from shocks and respond to change. Such investment is aimed at creating new, high-value jobs, enhancing access to markets for regional businesses; supporting growth in exports and greater national connections; supporting new innovations and technologies; and helping realise the potential of the Māori economy.
This investment needs to work alongside efforts to upskill and improve skills matching in the local workforce to help respond to skills needs, reduce skills shortages, create sustainable employment for New Zealanders and reduce reliance on migration.
Workforce planning can help identify current and future workforce needs and identify actions to meet them. While inherently uncertain, anticipating changes in skills needs – for example, due to new business models or the influence of ‘megatrends’ such as demographic change – can open up a broader range of ways to meet those needs, like activating local workforces or strengthening training pipelines. For example, there is an opportunity to use workforce planning to identify and build the skills New Zealand needs to deliver the 30 year National Infrastructure Plan. The right mix of immigration settings also needs to be in place so that lower-skilled migrants are not the first choice where there are qualified and available New Zealanders for roles, while also facilitating businesses to maintain a competitive edge in filling higher-skilled and specialised roles.
A future-focussed system that provides access to the right skills and jobs at the right time and in the right place will have:

• support for firms and industries to plan for skills and labour shortages to reduce reliance on immigration to address industry workforce needs;
• the right mix of skilled temporary migrants to address genuine skill and labour shortages, support rebuilding the economy, and to help manage numbers and pressures on core infrastructure, such as schools, housing, and the health system;
• a tertiary education system that supports New Zealand’s economic performance, our ability to grow and innovate and achieve better social outcomes;
• a high-quality and responsive careers system that is fully accessible and supports students and workers to make effective work and learning decisions and transitions, and improve skills alignment;
• transparent and reliable labour market information showing regional skill requirements and investment in development that supports regional growth, resilience and productivity that improves labour market outcomes for businesses and employees in the regions.

Actions

1. Provide advice on the establishment of an “Essential Worker” workforce planning mechanism to better plan for skill or labour shortages in the long term. (MBIE)

2. Make changes to work visas to ensure settings are better focussed on facilitating the right mix of skilled migrants and that New Zealanders are first in line for jobs. (MBIE)

3. Establish and support a University Advisory Group to provide advice on the challenges and opportunities in the university system. (MOE/TEC)

4. Provide transparent, future-focussed and accessible careers information and advice aligning work and learning pathways to skills, supporting students and workers to make informed decisions. (TEC)

   • Provide transparent and reliable labour market indicators to show occupational and other skills information. (TEC/MBIE)
   • Facilitate connections between schools, employers, and tertiary education organisations to ensure students are better prepared for employment and/or further education and training.
   • Ensure students and workers have access to career resources, information and support to make informed decisions.

5. Grow regional economies by improving resilience and increasing productivity. (MBIE)

   • Establish a Regional Infrastructure Fund with $1.2 billion in capital funding over the Parliamentary term.
   • Develop a sustainable funding model for Regional Development investments including the operation of Crown Regional Holdings Limited.
   • Improve the management of high-risk projects and increase the transparency of reporting in the Regional Development portfolio.

Unemployment rate in New Zealand – year to March 2024 (Stats NZ)(external link) — MBIE Regional Economic Activity Tool

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