The first Tāmaki Makaurau Regional Workforce Plan celebrates the region as a place of opportunity with a role in achieving national prosperity, with the region having over a third of the nation’s workers.
Restaurant Association CEO, Marisa Bidois, sits on the Tāmaki Makaurau Regional Skills Leadership Group (RSLG) and this group has just launched the Workforce Plan for the region. It sets out an ambitious list of actions to deliver good businesses, good skills and good jobs and ultimately, a good quality of life for all Aucklanders.
The Regional Workforce Plan focuses on a group of industries developing the workforce and skills the region needs for the future and how this work can be amplified. Through Marisa’s involvement in the group, the hospitality sector is highlighted and the plan includes support for the Association’s Future of Hospitality roadmap and our new hospitality accreditation programme, HospoCred
Setting up a ‘Good Jobs Unit’ to identify existing good jobs – well paid, secure, safe and satisfying with work-life balance – and to help employers and workers turn poor jobs into good jobs is one of multiple actions included in the plan. Changes could be as simple as workers being rostered at their closest site, rather than adding to Auckland’s commuter traffic
“The plan emphasises action and the importance of championing participation and equity,” said Robert Reid, Co-chair of the Tāmaki Makaurau RSLG. “We have raised concerns about the Year 12 and 13 South Auckland students failing to return to school after the Covid lockdowns. Many have sought jobs in parcel distribution and supermarkets to bring in much needed income for their families. Long term this will only add to the significant income disparity already existing in South and West Auckland and it will impact on Auckland’s and New Zealand’s future. These students represent 29 per cent of Auckland’s potential workforce and talent and 10 per cent of New Zealand’s.”
The RSLG has mandated the Tāmaki 10,000 strategy as a Māori Employment Strategy for the region as it seeks to broker better opportunities for youth/rangatahi.
RSLG Co-chair Awerangi Tamihere said, “Tāmaki 10,000 is not just about providing a paycheck to whanau. It is about harnessing the innovation and entrepreneurship of our tupuna to create ongoing generational prosperity – physical, spiritual, mental, and economic.”
One of the focus sectors for the plan is health and the RSLG calls for the breakdown of barriers preventing a significant scale-up of the health workforce.
Tamihere said the Te Pae Herenga COVID-19 vaccination mobilisation showed how effective a ‘by Māori, for Māori’ approach could be. The Whānau Ora collective quickly trained and mobilised a workforce new to the health sector.
“When our young people are supported to learn in an environment that affirms them as Māori, provides them with practical skills and work readiness knowledge, they can dream bigger.”
The Tāmaki Makaurau Regional Workforce Plan is available on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website at mbie.govt.nz/tamakimakaurau-rslg.
About the RSLG’s
The 15 RSLGs are independent advisory groups established by the Government to lead labour market planning in the regions and identify and support better ways of meeting future skills and workforce needs.
The Tāmaki Makaurau Regional Workforce plan highlights the labour supply and demand trends for the Tāmaki Makaurau region and identifies where change is needed from regional and national stakeholders to allow central and local government to better plan for, and address, future skills shortages.
RSLGs are locally based and regionally led, supported by a regional and national team of data analysts, advisors and workforce specialists at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The RSLGs will work closely with local, regional and national initiatives including the six Workforce Development Councils.
MBIE is leading a cross-agency response to the main issues RSLGs highlight in their Regional Workforce Plans. This will be provided within six months.