The impacts we are looking to make to achieve this outcome
The impacts we are looking to make to achieve this outcome are:
- improving employment outcomes through sustainable work
- improving people’s readiness for work, including through training and education
- improving people’s abilities to meaningfully participate in society
By engaging with people and whānau to understand their situation, their aspirations and what is important to them, including their culture and values, we help to enable New Zealanders to participate positively in society and reach their potential. We help connect people with opportunities to realise their goals, whether these relate to employment, education or training, or supporting others in their family or community.
- We spent over $380 million in 2018/19 on employment, work-readiness and training services
- We supported over 70,000 people into work
In addition, the amount of work-readiness training provided was well up, by nearly 40 percent – through industry partnerships, over 5,000 employers offered 16,000 work and training opportunities to clients.
We continued our focus on attaining sustainable and meaningful employment for our clients. We base our work on improving employment outcomes and people’s abilities to meaningfully participate in society around four pillars: earning, learning, caring and volunteering.
Our focus on employment initiatives included upskilling and apprenticeships; this is demonstrated through programmes such as Mana in Mahi, which focuses on getting youth into sustainable work. Mana in Mahi provided work and industry training for nearly 250 people. We anticipate that continued progress in this area will be reflected in more people remaining off benefit once they have left to go into work.
The increase in demand for financial assistance this year has impacted on the time our case managers can spend with clients on proactive employment-focused case management: only 20 percent of engagements with clients in June 2019 had an employment focus, the lowest proportion since 2014.
There is a significant group of clients who do not need an active ongoing relationship with us – they simply need to be in touch with us as required to receive their regular financial support so they can live as independently as they are able – for example, the majority of those who receive New Zealand Superannuation, Student Allowances and Supported Living Payment.
Many of our clients who do have some work obligations attached to their benefit need only a little support from us to connect to the right kind of service for their requirements. For others, who are typically further away from the labour market, we provide a higher level of support, either through proactive case management or through one of our many contracted providers.
We aim to build capability and address people’s barriers to finding and retaining suitable employment, and to match jobseekers and employers to sustained employment opportunities that suit their mutual needs.
Our regional employment teams work closely with industry and community providers to connect clients with training and employment opportunities. Our contracted services aim to either improve work readiness or get someone into work.
In 2018/19 we had nearly 25,000 clients participating in our various employment programmes. This includes 842 clients placed in employment via Skills for Industry, 247 in Mana in Mahi and 6,000 on Flexiwage [28].
Footnotes
[28] Flexiwage is a subsidy that can be to an employer for things such as training and mentoring for a person on a benefit that they would like to hire.
