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Employment and skills
The effective use of knowledge, skills and capital in business is a major driver of innovation and growth. This increases wages, lifts business competitiveness and profitability, and leads to better social and economic outcomes. The interaction of skilled people and innovative businesses provides the greatest scope for economic growth between now and 2025 .
The Employment Strategy presents the Government’s vision for the labour market and the changes it is implementing to improve employment outcomes for all New Zealanders.
A high-performing health and safety regulatory system contributes to our goal of healthy, safe and fulfilling work for all New Zealand workers, and to grow New Zealand for all.
From time to time, we review employment and accident compensation legislation. Our current and past reviews are listed on this page.
- Increasing the minimum sick leave entitlement
- Workplace relations in the screen industry
- Forced Labour Protocol
- Holidays Act Review
- Extending paid parental leave
- Equal Pay Amendment Act
- Law change for Easter Sunday shop trading
- Employment Standards Legislation Act
- Proposed Accident Compensation Appeal Tribunal
- Accident compensation dispute resolution review
- Reviewing regulated ACC payments for treatment
- Employment Relations Amendment Act
- Minimum wage reviews
- Fair Pay Agreements
- Sex work in New Zealand
- Changes to the process for setting pay for Members of Parliament
- Security officers – additional employment protections
- Matariki
- Updating Accident Compensation Review Costs Regulations
We provide advice on relevant international labour issues and assess the impact of international developments on New Zealand's labour interests.
This section provides labour market analysis and forecasting, data on jobs and skills, and reports on Māori and Pacific Peoples labour market participation and other research.
- Jobs Online
- National Survey of Employment Intentions
- Labour Market Dashboard
- Occupation Outlook
- Quarterly labour market report
- Labour Market Statistics Snapshot
- Monthly labour market fact sheet
- Labour market forecasting
- National Survey of Employers
- Other labour market reports
- Labour market glossary
- Quarterly Labour Market Scorecard
The future of work is being shaped by 4 broad global megatrends: technology change, demographic change, globalisation and climate change. These global trends create both risks and opportunities for New Zealand.
Independent Regional Skills Leadership Groups actively support our changing labour markets across New Zealand.
Every year, more than 100,000 New Zealanders are made redundant, laid off, or have to stop working because of a health condition or disability.
The Government, Business New Zealand and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions are proposing a new way of better protecting workers and the economy: a New Zealand Income Insurance scheme (NZIIS)
The NZ Industrial Relations Foundation (Inc) (the Foundation) is an educational trust set up to promote, through education, better industrial relations in New Zealand.
The all-of-government plan of action against forced labour, people trafficking and slavery sets out a high-level framework for the actions that agencies will take over the next five years to 2025, to combat these practices.