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Major spending decisions
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Regular progress updates are published for the below initiatives as part of the Government’s requirements for reporting on major spending decisions.
Employment Services – Investing in Frontline Staff and Employment Programmes (Budget 2025)
This initiative enables the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to maintain critical employment spending from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2027, to help get more people into work and make progress towards the Jobseeker Reduction Target. Time limited funding of $343.300 million has been allocated using the joint Treasury and MSD invest-to-save framework and net savings of $147.255 million are forecast.
Further information regarding the initiative, including a breakdown of the costs and savings, can be found on our website.
Deliverables and planned timeline
The initiative contains three key components:
- Maintaining current levels of case management – the initiative funds the continuation of 490 time-limited frontline staff, primarily case managers. Funding began on 1 October 2025 when the previous time-limited funding for these staff expired, and lasts two years until 30 September 2027.
- Continuing employment programmes – the initiative enables MSD to continue delivering key employment programmes. Funding began on 1 July 2025 given previous time-limited funding expired at the end of the 2024/25 financial year, and lasts two years until 30 June 2027. This includes the following programmes:
- Flexi-wage
- Regional Employment Placement Programmes
- Here Toitū and Individual Placement and Support
- Skills for Industry.
- Expanding Community Job Coaching – the initiative also funds an expansion of Community Job Coaching for up to 6,000 clients. These clients will also be eligible for bonus payments if they remain off-benefit for 12 months.
- This funding began on 1 July 2025, and lasts two years until 30 June 2027.
- Contracts for the new Community Job Coaching service commenced in October 2025.
- Year one will deliver the service to 4,000 young Jobseeker clients, expanding to up to 6,000 in year two of the programme.
Intended results
The primary outcome of this funding will be that employment services and programmes support a greater number of people off benefit and into work which will support the Jobseeker Reduction Target, getting more New Zealanders into employment and participating in the economy while also resulting in savings to the Crown.
Indicators of performance and value for money
MSD provided a monitoring and evaluation plan for the initiative to the Minister for Social Development and Employment and the Minister of Finance at the end of June 2025 which will be reported on once finalised.
The following monitoring metrics have been developed to track the initiatives progress.
| Performance indicators | 2025/26 result | Comment |
|---|---|---|
|
Initiative savings |
|
Not available. Savings will be available following the evaluation which requires the initiative to be completed before it can be finalised. |
|
Total number of clients receiving employment-focused case management |
65,382 as at the end of June 2026 |
|
|
Number of clients receiving employment-focused case management funded through Budget 2025 initiative |
48,137 as at the end of June 2026 |
This figure takes the proportion of case managers funded through this Budget 2025 initiative in relation to total employment-focused case managers, and applies the same proportion to the number of clients receiving employment-focused case management. |
|
Number of clients enrolling in the Community Job Coaching programme |
3,748 during 2025/26 |
|
|
Number of clients participating in Flexi-wage programmes |
5,982 during 2025/26 |
This figure takes the proportion of actual spending in 2025/26 that was funded through this Budget 2025 initiative, and applies the same proportion to the number of clients participating in the Programme. |
|
Number of clients participating in the Skills for Industry programme |
1,462 during 2025/26 |
This figure takes the proportion of actual spending in 2025/26 that was funded through this Budget 2025 initiative, and applies the same proportion to the number of clients participating in the Programme. |
|
Number of clients participating in regional employment placement programmes |
1,026 during 2025/26 |
This figure takes the proportion of actual spending in 2025/26 that was funded through this Budget 2025 initiative, and applies the same proportion to the number of clients participating in the Programme. |
Frequency of reporting
As part of the Government’s requirements for reporting on major spending decisions, MSD is required to publicly report on this initiative twice-yearly on our website, and annually in our Annual Report.
MSD will also report on this initiative to the Minister for Social Development and Employment and the Treasury as part of the quarterly reporting on the Jobseeker Reduction target.
Apprenticeship Boost (Budget 2024)
Apprenticeship Boost is a multi-agency collaboration. The Ministry of Education is responsible for its policy, the Tertiary Education Commission checks eligibility, and MSD manages applications and payments.
Progress updates will be managed by the Ministry of Education and MSD will contribute to these.
Updates will be published on the Ministry of Education's website once every 6 months, starting in June 2025.
You can find out more about Apprenticeship Boost, and which industries are targeted, on the Tertiary Education Commission and Ministry of Social Development’s websites.