What success looks like
Good employment outcomes are diverse
All of us, including people living with disability or health issues have varied skills and work aspirations and the employment outcomes that suit us will look different for each person. Good employment outcomes that this action plan is aiming for can include part-time work, full-time work, intermittent work, self-employment, business ownership and other work arrangements. A range of different approaches are required to achieve these diverse outcomes - this is not a 'one size fits all' plan.
To ensure the plan is working for all people and their diverse aspirations we need to measure success carefully. We especially need to check progress for people who experience multiple disadvantage and people with high disability support needs.
Closing the gap in labour market statistics
There is a large gap in employment outcomes between disabled people and non-disabled people. Disabled people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed and young disabled people are more than four times as likely to not be in employment, education or training as their non-disabled peers. We will know the plan is succeeding when these gaps start to close. However, this will take time and we need to measure progress along the way to be sure we are on track.
Indicators that show progress along the way
A first step to implement this plan will be the development of a concise set of indicators of progress, in consultation with stakeholders. These need to include the immediate outcomes from actions (such as participant numbers in services) as well as the longer-term wellbeing and employment statistics.
These indicators should drive, measure and inform us about progress as we collectively implement the plan. They will sit within a monitoring framework that helps government and other stakeholders to improve the plan and refresh the kaupapa as we learn more about what works.
Based on our initial consultation we know that these indicators will:
- draw on annual Statistics New Zealand surveys that show the gap between disabled people and non-disabled people for:
- labour market participation rates
- employment rates
- unemployment rates
- utilisation rates
- income
- aim to break down some outcome data for different groups:
- people with higher support needs (including people with intellectual disability)
- people who access mental health or addiction services
- Māori
- Pacific People, refugees, recent migrants and ethnic communities, older people and young people
- aim to draw on or develop broader data sets that measure:
- wellbeing
- vocational education participation and outcomes
- sense of belonging
- employer attitudes.
