Labour says there will be sufficient jobs or training opportunities for 24,000 under-20 year-olds not currently in employment, education or training by the end of its first term in government if it wins the November 26 election.
Announcing the NZ$251 million package in Upper Hutt today, leader Phil Goff said a Labour government would put more resources into schools to help with skills development, and change the way the dole was paid to under-20s to try and get them into apprenticeships and training.
“Everyone knows that our youth unemployment rate is far too high – our young people represent more of our total unemployment numbers than in any other OECD country,” Goff said.
“This is a ticking time-bomb and has to be fixed. These kids are our future but at the moment they are being left on the scrapheap. If we don’t do something now, we will all pay a far higher price. The New Zealand Institute estimates the cost of disengaged youth is NZ$900 million a year,” he said.
Labour said it would put more resources into schools to help skills development for students, while spending NZ$24 million on a ‘Youth Transitions’ network “to ensure every school leaver has a plan for further training education or work”.
Labour would then alter how dole payments were made to under-20 year-olds in an NZ$87 million package it said would get 9,000 off the dole by transferring dole payments to employers for apprenticeship payments.
The payments would most likely be organised and made through Work and Income New Zealand.
Another NZ$80 million would be earmarked for 5,000 additional training places for 16 and 17 year olds in institutions like polytechs.
All up the policy would cost NZ$251 million over four years, Goff said. NZ$80 million of this would be taken from existing programmes, leaving NZ$171 million which would be found through Labour’s recently announced tax package.
More soon.
14 Comments
Excellent idea, pay the dole money to the employer, then the employer has his $2hr youth rates, and the youth gets a job that is paying at least the minimum wage. The polytech's and ITO's hold little value for me as an employer, anyone and everyone who attends get a certificate worth a nugget of goat poos. At least by the time they leave they will be older and a bit more mature. Attitude is more important then a ticket, but you can't train attitude in a classroom, and it is difficult to quantify. At least with training the teachers can quantify the results, and unemployment numbers are reduced.
....so after 12 or so years at school ya still not ready for a job..so hey, lets fund another few months of 'learning'..
Not sure ...what a few more months of dubious traing will achiveve...jobs for the trainers..stuff all else.
Better off training them to plant rice, cause thats who their competition for jobs is now......
Yeah I find it a bit strange as well. I thought school was supposed to get kids ready for the workforce? So after how many billions are spent on education, the poor old suffering kiwi sucker taxpayer has to now cough up even more money to get these kids ready for work. Shouldn't this approach then also be coupled with a full and thorough review of the education system in this country to make sure that the value laden neosocialist experiment instituted by the left’s social theorists hasn't stuffed up our schools? Because it looks like to me it has and we now have to pay twice for Labour’s rubbish.
Government - private sector - how we do it ?
FYI
According to the apprenticeship barometer compiled in April by the Federal Professional Education and Technology Office, Swiss companies were advertising 81,000 apprenticeships in early 2011.
In the future it will be increasingly difficult to fill demanding apprenticeships, Renold fears. Young people are currently most interested in apprenticeships in the service sector, in printing, design and applied arts, as well as in health, social services and sales.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Employers_face_first-ever_apprentice_shortage.html?cid=30511594
with some interesting links:
Costs and benefits:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/31/41538706.pdf
Here a link with costs and benefits:
In many countries, co-financing arrangements allow costs to be shared between the state, the employers and individuals. Such cost sharing arrangements differ across countries and might vary over time according to economic context variables with more state subsidies during recession for instance in form of a premium for firms that manage to maintain or increase their apprenticeship places during an economic downturn.
Thanks Walter, Impressive indeed if the 15/16 year olds are being treated in this way. I'll look more closely. I often wonder if even younger age groups could be better served by apprenticeship systems rather than the school model we have.... better ask a teacher first...
NZ Labour propose to fix a problem which was created by NZ Labour ...... by tapping the tax-payer yet again ......
..... now , why doesn't this surprise us anymore !
Yes , we could waste a quarter of a billion dollars on another feel-good government programme , create a new bureaucracy to oversee the whole shebang .... and meebee get some youngsters into jobs in 3 years or so ..
... or we could just reinstate the youth rates ( which NZ Labour scrapped ) ... and get alotta kids into jobs instantly , and at no extra cost to the tax-payer ...... hmmmm ?
Now look here Gummy...you know dam well simple solutions that do not reward Goofy's Labour with votes and support inside the bureaucracy are not wanted. The critical goal here is to get the snout in the pig trough...and bugger what it costs.
Now you go back to peeing on the Bamboo.
Well I had a fun morning making puppets at school with the kids cause thats what the syllabus requires now. Plenty of art opportunies. We are taking our 3 kids off on holiday for 2 months. We give them an hour or so of education a week ourselves so now the 6 year old is doing year 6 maths and reading like a 10 year old.
While we are away the others would have a chance to catch up a little but won't because the whole last term seems to be dedicated to cycle safety and the school production.
Why don't they just teach them maths and english, they could be done when thay are 12 and do a whole degree by the time they are 16 if they stuck to the basics!!!!
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