We ran several programmes with industry and employers to create opportunities for jobseekers
When there are better and more diverse employment opportunities, all New Zealanders benefit from higher standards of living. This is why we partner with industry and employers to drive improved social outcomes and create a more productive economy.
We supported regional economic development
Working in partnership to identify opportunities in the regions
Launched in 2014, the Regional Growth Programme involves the Government working in partnership with businesses, iwi, Māori, councils and other regional stakeholders to identify opportunities in each region to improve economic performance and raise living standards.
Under this programme, regional leaders, such as local authorities, must develop Regional Economic Action Plans – economic blueprints for each region that identify specific activities that will help to increase employment opportunities, household income and investment.
Our role is to support regional stakeholders to identify the employment needs of businesses and to develop those skills among our local clients seeking work.
Some of the ways we support employment growth in the regions are:
Supporting Hawke’s Bay people into jobs
Project 1000 aims to support 1,000 local people into jobs by July 2019. Targeted jobs are mostly in horticulture, viticulture and manufacturing.
Working with our partners, we placed 316 people into employment in 2017/2018[40], of whom 64 percent were Māori and 36 percent youth. We have entered into innovative and supportive partnerships with iwi/hapū, employers, local councils and our contracted providers.
The horticultural industry, in particular, has continued to implement successful initiatives that have seen local people move from seasonal to sustainable employment.
Exposing, Educating and Exciting our Youth on their Future Pathways
This trial project focuses on connecting young people who are not in employment or education with industry.
Our service provider, Aoraki Development, organises a range of activities that include pathway presentations and guest speakers in schools, holding sector open days and expos, and arranging site visits to local employers.
In January 2018, 30 Waimate high school teachers spent their Teacher Only Day visiting local businesses and industries to learn more about the pathway and career opportunities in the region. Businesses involved included Fonterra, Studholme, DB Breweries, Thompsons Construction and Timaru Container Terminal Ltd.
More than 3,000 secondary school students have interacted with over 150 local businesses from a variety of industry sectors. The initiative also involved establishing annual plans with each school, where mentors from the business community work alongside priority students to develop transition pathway plans.
The success to date is based on a fully collaborative model between parents, secondary schools (careers advisors and teachers), local business and industry, and Aoraki Development – all solely focused on ensuring the students are ‘exposed, educated and excited’ about potential career and further education pathways.
Youth Employment Success
In May 2018 we extended the successful Youth Employment Success (YES) programme from Dunedin into Eastern Southland. The web-based programme seeks to bridge the gap between young people and local employers by procuring work-related opportunities. Young people get access to work placements, mentoring, internships, coffee dates, CV reviews, practice interviews, site visits, employer presentations and many other activities.
Expected outcomes from the programme include increased positive connections between young people and local employers, better work conversations, greater awareness of the world of work for young people and their whānau, and more young people engaged in education, training or employment.
Currently there are around 90 YES employers in Dunedin and Eastern Southland, providing over 900 opportunities for local youth.
We supported programmes under the Provincial Development Unit umbrella
In March 2018 MBIE established the Provincial Development Unit, which is home to three programmes that we are actively involved in: the Provincial Growth Fund, the Sector Workforce Engagement Programme, and He Poutama Rangatahi.
Provincial Growth Fund
The Provincial Growth Fund provides $1 billion per annum over three years for regional economic development initiatives. It aims to lift productivity potential in the provinces by enhancing economic development opportunities, creating sustainable jobs, enabling Māori to reach their full potential, boosting social inclusion and participation, and building resilient communities.
We are working to place clients into job opportunities created by the Fund.
Sector Workforce Engagement Programme and the Auckland Airport Skills and Jobs Hub
The Sector Workforce Engagement Programme (SWEP) was established in 2016 to improve employers’ access to reliable, appropriately skilled staff at the right time and place, while giving priority to domestic jobseekers, including beneficiaries. As part of SWEP, we provide work brokerage for the Auckland Airport Skills and Jobs Hub (ARA) by connecting jobseekers to employment opportunities available at the Airport precinct through the Hub.
As at 30 June 2018 ARA had placed 487 people into employment since November 2015, of whom 234 had previously been receiving a benefit.
A school work experience programme with five South Auckland high schools supported 73 students to undertake work experience through ARA.
He Poutama Rangatahi
This cross-agency pilot, which is facilitated by MBIE, aims to support communities to develop pathways (poutama) for rangatahi (young people aged 15 to 24 years) who are not currently in employment, education or training (NEETs) and take them through to sustained employment, underpinned by intensive pastoral care.
The programme operates in four regions (Te Tai Tokerau, Eastern Bay of Plenty, Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay) and supports 5,280 young people.
We are actively involved in providing technical advice to groups and service providers applying for He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) funding. We support successful applicants and providers to set up and implement their projects and then help young people to access those opportunities.
In early 2018 HPR provided funding for various projects to support unemployed youth, or youth who are at risk of long-term unemployment. Support provided within these projects includes a work readiness programme, support for NEETs to get qualifications and work experience, and a WorkFit programme to scale up existing initiatives to get young people physically and mentally fit for work.
We launched a new website – Work the Seasons
In March 2018 we launched the Work the Seasons website. This online employment website portal connects seasonal employers directly with workers, which helps to address skills and labour shortages in the New Zealand seasonal work industry.
By 30 June 2018 a total of 83 different employers had listed 7,512 vacancies on the site, and 2,093 people had visited the site (on average, each user visits 4.1 pages).
A wide variety of industries and sectors have listed vacancies on the site, including horticulture, viticulture, tourism, hospitality, seafood and meat processing. These sector groups have also actively promoted the website within their memberships.
During 2017/2018, 287 jobseekers completed free courses. As at 30 June, 2,686 jobseekers were registered on the website.
Around 50 percent of the listings encourage jobseekers to visit the employer website to apply. At present it is unclear how many of these listings have resulted in job placements.
We partner nationally and regionally to connect jobseekers with potential employers
It is standard practice in most of our partnerships to target most-in-need groups, such as youth jobseekers, sole parents, Māori and Pacific youth, and people with health conditions and disabilities looking to transition into employment.
Skills for Industry
Skills for Industry allows us to work with employers to address their skill and labour requirements, while maximising outcomes for our clients. Of the 110 clients we contracted to Accor Hotels, 74 percent were off benefit within eight weeks of completing the programme; and of the 90 we contracted to Downer (New Zealand) Ltd, 77 percent were off benefit within eight weeks of completing the programme.
Accor Hotels
This Fast Track Partner programme is a five-week pre-employment fast-tracking initiative in partnership with Accor Hotels and Tourism Industry Aotearoa, providing industry training and employment in a range of hospitality businesses. Of the 30 people who started the programme in 2017/2018, 27 gained employment and 22 completed at least three months in employment. The success of the programme and increased industry demand prompted us to expand it to Christchurch and Rotorua in August 2017.
Downer (New Zealand) Limited
This partnership uses Skills for Industry programmes to provide training and apprenticeship opportunities across the construction sector for jobseekers. Many people who were formerly on benefit are now developing their careers with Downer. Since 2012 Downer has employed, trained and supported 1,000 people into employment, including around 250 in 2017/2018.
The Warehouse Group
Our programme with The Warehouse Group continued to accelerate. This partnership creates work experience and training opportunities through The Warehouse’s Red Shirts in Community programme. In the last year 869 people joined the programme, making a total of 1,170 participants since we launched the programme in 2016. In March 2018 this programme was nominated by the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (IPANZ) for a Public Service Excellence Award.
Job expos
We held, organised or presented at a series of job expos around the country, including the annual Sort It Careers Expo in Palmerston North, and JobFest and the Careers Expo in Auckland. The expos give us valuable opportunities to support potential and existing jobseekers to connect with employers. We also worked with Medcall, a specialist recruitment company for the health care sector, to hold a recruitment expo in Auckland for the aged-care sector.
We supported schemes to get young people into employment
Flexi-Wage Work Experience
Flexi-Wage Work Experience aims to assist people with limited work experience into employment, by offering a wage subsidy for employers who hire disadvantaged jobseekers. We specifically target groups such as youth and people with health and disability conditions. The programme runs for 13 weeks and is designed to enable people to develop sufficient employment skills that may lead to longer-term employment potential.
Of the 93 people who completed the programme in 2017/2018, 46 have permanent full-time work with their Work Experience employer, two have secured full-time work with other employers, and four have ongoing part-time work.
Ākina Foundation
We contracted the Ākina Foundation in 2016 to run a series of programmes under the banner Launchpad over six months to help get social enterprise ideas off the ground. We sought to invest in social enterprise projects that focused on increasing employment among Māori, youth, and people with disabilities and health conditions.
Launchpad recruited 10 social enterprise ‘start-ups’ per programme, providing each with structured methodologies, business skills and focused development support.
Over the past year the programme created 69 jobs for our clients (four within the ventures and 65 outside) and provided 127 others with employment training.
Ākina provided a report in December 2017 acknowledging our leadership in supporting an innovative approach to achieving employment outcomes, and discussing reflections and opportunities for further impact.
We have entered into discussions with Ākina about the progress of social enterprise ventures and the delivery of another round of the Launchpad programme.
We worked with the Department of Corrections to improve outcomes for offenders before and after their release
Supporting Offenders into Employment is a national initiative designed to actively engage with offenders before their release, with an aim to enable and improve employment outcomes and reduce reoffending through provision of intensive support for up to a year after their release. Case managers work with people from 12 weeks prior to their release and for up to 12 months after they enter employment, to help them manage barriers to their transition into work.
The initiative is split into two workstreams, including an in-house intensive client management model with 10 dedicated Intensive Client Support Managers across the country, and an external service model based in Canterbury. The trial can support up to 200 participants through external providers, and up to 400 through the internal service.
As at 30 June 2018:
over 400 clients were participating in the service, with over 70 percent of these in employment, education or training or the subject of health referrals.
Cross-agency collaboration between MSD and the Department of Corrections was a new way of working and has shown benefits.
Footnote
[40]. Compared with 261 in 2016/2017.
