$1.6b for free trade training
The Government’s ‘‘jobs Budget’’ is set to open up free vocational training for all New Zealanders during the next two years.
The Government is also giving the Ministry of Social Development a $400 million boost and investing $1.6 billion in trades and apprenticeships. It intends to rapidly retrain about 10,000 hospitality and aviation sector workers for primary sector jobs as part of Budget 2020’s investments in jobs and training.
The funding is part of a $50b fund to respond to the coronavirus crash and rebuild the economy, with $16b allocated yesterday, $14b already spent, and another $20b available if needed.
Trades, apprenticeships
The $1.6b Trades and Apprenticeships Training Package aims to boost the economy by opening up opportunities for those who lost jobs to the Covid-19 crisis, or who need to upskill for a new career.
The fund will be available from July 1, and will include courses linked to building and construction, agriculture, and manufacturing, as well as vocational courses such as community health, counselling and care work.
The Budget also allocates $320m for ‘‘targeted investment’’ for free trades training in critical industries, $412m for employers to keep training their apprentices and $19m for group training schemes to retain apprentices. The volume of Trades Academy places in secondary schools will increase by 1000 places a year from 2021.
MSD support
The Budget has allocated a further $400m for the Ministry of Social Development to get people into work. With the increased pressure of that, it will get $250m to employ more frontline staff.
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni said an additional $150m would be invested in expanding MSD’s employment support services. This would allow the ministry to respond to increased demand, she said.
Primary sector
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said $19.3m would be spent over four years on a range of initiatives to help thousands of recently unemployed Kiwis access training and work opportunities in the primary sector.
The sector would need about 50,000 more people in a post-Covid19 world, he said.
Ma¯ ori apprenticeships
Funding of $50m will go towards support for Ma¯ori trades training.
O’Connor said: ‘‘Ma¯ori community groups will partner with the Crown to establish and design group training schemes that employ Ma¯ori as apprentices and support the placement of apprentices.’’
Youth employment
A youth employment initiative for atrisk youth in the regions will get a $121m boost. He Poutama Rangatahi helps connect young people to real jobs and the funding is aimed at giving it a more sustained footing in the regions and speeding up its establishment in urban areas such as West Auckland, Hamilton, Porirua and east Christchurch.