Employment gaps require change

Since the 1990s, the number of apprentices has increased, helped by Government incentives, but the other side with a “bums on seats” model of funding tertiary institutions have introduced qualifications for almost every occupation. It is now almost impossible for a young New Zealander to get a job without a tertiary qualification.

Successive governments, organisations, and too many individual businesses have looked more and more to immigrants to fill the gaps in skills the modern world requires. Most other “developed” countries are doing the same; in the global economy New Zealand is competing against everyone else for the same groups of people, and the pandemic has simply exacerbated the problem. At least the current Government is seeking to resolve the longstanding issues through the merging of polytechnics and ITOs. Time will tell, but solving the problem requires shifts in attitudes as well as in structures and systems.

What happened to the large group of businesses that got together pre-Covid and promised to take young people into their workplaces without requiring a tertiary qualification?