PM's Post-Cab 12/8/19: Employment Deployment

PM's Post-Cabinet Press Conference 12 August 2019: Employment Deployment

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was joined at her post-cabinet press conference by Minister of Employment for the announcement of the government's employment strategy.

Ardern began by outlining upcoming plans – including the Pacific Island Forum – and discussing the state of the economy and the government's stimulus measures context for the employment plan. She and Jackson then presented cross-ministry employment strategy.

The strategy will:

- build a skilled workforce by ensuring the education, immigration, welfare systems all pull in the same direction to unlock people’s potential and enable businesses to get the skills they need

- support industries and regions to thrive by ensuring they are well served by the skills and training system

- support workplaces to modernise by encouraging them to make the most of New Zealand’s increasingly diverse workforce

- support workers and businesses to be resilient and adaptable in the face of the changing nature of work by making sure New Zealanders have good foundation skills and participate in lifelong learning.

- support a more inclusive labour market to better enable people to grow their skills and careers and have decent and stable work.

The strategy will be delivered through six action plans. The first of these, the Youth Employment Action Plan, was released today.

Ardern and Jackson then took questions on the strategy, including expectations for the other action plans and why only the youth one was released today, economic stimulus packages and whether more welfare might be included, the expected impacts of the youth plan, the government intentions on immigration and the workforce.

Other questions to Ardern included the possibility of restoring voting rights to (some) prisoners, claims of labour staff bullying, Labour's budget responsibility rules in the context of the worsening global economy, Fonterra project loss and farmer debt, and China's claim it is "beyond reproach" on the independence of New Zealand universities.