Employment

Having a job is key to being able to provide for yourself and your family.

In these tough economic times we’re working hard to help people stay in work, or get a job if they are not already in work. For those who can’t find work, we will be here to help, but our first priority will always be to get people back into the workplace as soon as possible

Our local labour market
The effects of the recession are being felt in all of our major industries – agriculture, fishing, forestry, viticulture, and tourism and hospitality. To successfully navigate out of the recession we have to work closely with employers, unions, employees and industry to know how we can best help them.

Much of the work in our region is seasonal. We are working with seasonal employers to help keep people in work throughout the year. Seasonal Careers: Your Choice is a Southern initiative involving Government and industry working together to source alternative employment for meat industry workers during the off-season, thereby keeping workers gainfully employed. To get results for employers and jobseekers we need to appropriately match them up with each other. Training people so they have the skills our employers need is an important step.

Working with employers

We held a regional job summit to maintain the momentum of the national Job Summit.^[1] The keynote speaker, Dr Ganesh Nana, a senior economist, provided an overview of current economic trends in New Zealand and around the world. Dr Nana’s presentation set the scene for other key business leaders in the Southern Region to participate in a panel discussion about the impact of the recession.

The partnering agencies met to discuss the key themes of the summit with the view to establishing a regional steering group. Following this we formed partnerships with local organisations and held workshops in Invercargill and Timaru. Local economic issues relevant to those areas were discussed and identified for further work at the local level.

Industry/employer partnerships
We work with industries at a national level to minimise skill and labour shortages, and to maximise job opportunities. These partnerships are designed to address the needs of industries by delivering targeted industry-specific skills training and, at the same time, jobs for programme participants.

We currently have 80 industry and major employer partnerships nationwide. These partnerships include those with major industries like agriculture, construction and hospitality. We also have partnerships with regional Chambers of Commerce and large employers like Telecom, Air New Zealand, Fonterra, Westpac and McDonald’s.

Locally, we work closely with the Seasonal Solutions Co-operative to make sure they can meet the demand for labour for our horticulture and viticulture industries within Central Otago and the Gibbston Valley. Over the next year we will be focusing on establishing 20 full-time positions working with the employers in the region.

Straight 2 Work
We run Straight 2 Work programmes with most of our industry and employer partners. These programmes offer pre- and post-employment training and support. They are developed by industry for industry, making the training relevant to the needs of employers.

Help keep businesses going
Businesses with more than 50 staff that are experiencing a temporary downturn can get extra help from us through the Job Support Scheme. The scheme pays an allowance for those workers who agree to work reduced hours. This means employers can keep as many jobs as possible while firms’earnings are down. Right now we are helping businesses through this scheme in the Southern Region.

Getting people into work

Our ‘Work First’ focus
We are finding that the type of person coming to us for job search help has changed – they have more skills and a different expectation of our services. This has meant that we have had to respond to better meet their needs.

We have changed our service delivery model to assess how quickly we can get people back into work. We have improved the ease of finding work for self driven jobseekers, improved our services to employers, and ensured that appropriate job vacancies are made more readily available. If a person loses their job, it’s important they find another one quickly. They are more likely to be attractive to employers while their skills are current and they still have confidence.

We want our people to get into work and to stay in work. In 2009/2010 we’ll:

• form partnerships with local industries and employers to help them get the right people with the right skills
• make sure jobseekers have the right information about our local labour market, and have the tools to access it.
  

Help for people affected by redundancy
We are working hard with businesses to make sure as many of them as possible can stay afloat. But in some cases this may not be possible. We have developed close relationships with employers and unions through our Redundancy Support services. Because of these relationships and the trust that has developed, we’ve been able to help a number of people before they lost their jobs.

When we become aware of potential business closures, we meet with the employees and help them work out their future options. We have run a number of Employment Expos to help employees meet employers who want to recruit highly motivated, highly skilled people with recent and relevant job skills.

For people who have been made redundant and can’t find other work, we deliver the ReStart package. ReStart offers financial help for up to 16 weeks for those people who have been made redundant and need extra help.

^[1] The Prime Minister's Summit on Employment (the Job Summit) was held in February 2009 as a forum to generate practical, achievable steps to save and create as many jobs as possible.