Labour youth skills and employment package unveiled today will
cut spending on the dole and redirect millions to fund
apprenticeships.
Labour will reprioritise $80 million from existing schemes, with
$58 million going to the apprenticeship subsidy instead of dole
payments.
It will be funded out of revenue from Labour's tax plan.
The party proposes converting dole payments into a $8700 subsidy
to fund 9000 additional apprenticeship places. Dole payments would
be converted into incentives for employers to take on additional
apprentices.
The package will cost $251 million over four years, starting
before young people leave school and Labour claims it will see
teens earning or learning within three years.
Leader Phil Goff said youth unemployment is too high.
"Our young people represent more of our total unemployment
numbers than in any other OECD country," he 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."
He said if something is not done now the New Zealand Institute
estimates the cost of disengaged youth is $900 million a year.
Goff said Labour will also adopt ideas from the old Maori Trade
training programme and apply them to Maori and Pasifika
communities. The party also aims to build on proven programmes such
as Gateway, the youth transition service, tertiary high schools and
trades academies, and the Conservation Corps.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister John Key unveiled welfare
reforms which take a hard line on unemployed youth and solo parents
who do nothing to find a job.
National's policy would involve cash bonuses paid to private
organisations and putting controls on teenage beneficiaries in
terms of how they can spend their welfare money, while also offer
them more mentoring and support to get back into work.
Labour MP Jacinda Ardern said Key is targeting a small group of
unemployed and ignoring the majority.
She said he has targeted 1600 young people rather the other
58,000 people who are not in jobs, education or training.
Key responded by saying New Zealand has a welfare system that is
not sustainable. National doesn't know how to manage or administer a social welfare system.
National doesn't have a youth policy or an employment creation policy - just inane and poorly worked anti- welfare policies. National doesn't have a clue to be fair!
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The Blogfrog
In the immediate aftermath of the February 22 earthquake in Christchurch, police photographers were the only media allowed into the city’s CBD.
