Horomia: Launch of enhanced KiwiCareers website

23 March 2006 (10.30am) Speech notes

Launch of enhanced KiwiCareers website Westpac St James Theatre, Wellington

I am delighted to be here today to launch the enhanced KiwiCareers website. My colleague, Education Minister Steve Maharey was unable to be here and he sends his apologies and best wishes. Thanks to Trish McKelvey and Lester Oakes for the opportunity to highlight this important piece of work.

I would also like to acknowledge ‘education.au’, the Careers Service’s project partner - representatives of whom I understand are here today.

The Careers' Service plays a hugely important role in shaping our workforce and helping New Zealanders make the right career choices in a changing economy.

Your work is also an important part of this government's broader focus on transforming New Zealand's economy.

Over the next decade we want to transform New Zealand to a high value knowledge-based economy. Your challenge in this will be to support career choices that match individual skills and aspirations to the needs of our changing economy.

And in our modern economy, you now have a role not only advising those who are leaving school, but also in encouraging lifelong learning - Research has shown that the modern worker could change their career up to seven times in their lifetime.
Given these statistics, the sort of comprehensive career advice you provide is more important than ever.

The enhanced website we are launching today will strengthen the work the Careers Service is doing.

KiwiCareers provides the best information and advice that's available, to help people to plan and make good choices throughout their careers.

This website provides user friendly labour market data, including projected employment growth areas, regional labour market conditions, pay expectations, options for career progression, and information about what it is like to live and work in different regions of New Zealand.

Jobseekers can also access advice on how to write a CV and apply for jobs. Parents can find information on how to assist their children with making good subject choices at school. For employers there is access to training information and courses to provide professional development opportunities for their employees.

Some of the 'flash' features of this website include:

- a more user-friendly look – to increase the accessibility of the site to a wider audience;
- a subject search engine – to help school leavers link the school subjects they enjoy to relevant careers;
- a skill classification system – to make it easy for people to see how skills correlate to jobs;
- information about regional labour markets – also including regional information about lifestyle, median income, average house prices and population trends; and

KiwiCareers will benefit thousands of Kiwis
We know from the success of KiwiCareers to date that this enhanced site will benefit a large number of New Zealanders right around the country.

In the 2004-2005 year over half a million people accessed KiwiCareers for information and advice – up 12% on the previous year's figures.

An evaluation of Careers Services products from last year, showed 95% of users rated the information on the website as useful. 87% planned to take further action based on the information they found. And 82% said that their visit to the website increased their awareness of the range of career options and services available.

The evaluation also showed the site was reaching a broader age range than ever before – of the 51,000 registrations on the Pathfinder service featured on the site, 56% were school students, 32% were adults and 12% were tertiary students or recent school leavers.

Thanks again for inviting me here today. I look forward to tracking the progress of this new website. I know it will become an increasingly important resource for New Zealanders throughout their careers.

I am very pleased to launch the enhanced KiwiCareers website - www.kiwicareers.govt.nz

ENDS

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