Mihi & Co-chair foreword

View of Auckland city from Maunga.

Photo: Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei

Mihi

He aha te hau e wawara e wawara? He tiu he raki nāna i ā mai te pūpūtarakihi ki uta, e tikina atu e au te kōtiu koia te pou whakairo ka tū ki Waitematā. 

Ka rerenoa ngā oha ki a Kawerau ki te uru, ki a Paoa ki te rāwhiti, ki a Waiohua ki te tonga. Herea mai ngā taura o ngā mātāwaka ki te pou whakairo, ka whakatauki ai ahau i konei, Tāmaki Makaurau Tāmaki Herehere i ngā waka. Tēnei ka mihi ake, kei aku rangatira tēnā rā koutou katoa.

Co-chair foreword

Pῡ rewa, Tai rewa, Ka rewa, Tangitῡ te ao, korowai te motu,

Ka hautapu ngā maunga, Whaitere ki ngā awa, Tau noa atu ki te moana ee

Welcome to Building the Workforce for Better Jobs, the first Regional Workforce Plan of the Tāmaki Makaurau Regional Skills Leadership Group (RSLG).

Regional Skill Leadership Groups (RSLGs) were established as part of the Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) and also as a recommendation from the Whakamana Tāngata report of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group.

The 15 groups were established to gather local and regional labour market intelligence and to provide advice to government and vocational education agencies on the issues and concerns that businesses, learners and workers are facing.

We were privileged to have been asked to be co-chairs of the interim Tāmaki Makaurau RSLG by then- Employment Minister, Hon Willie Jackson and to have been confirmed in the role by the current Minister of Social Development and Employment, Hon Carmel Sepuloni.

Interim RSLGs were formed a few months after COVID-19 had disrupted the country. We sprang into life to provide labour market advice to government and its agencies in a situation none of us had seen before. The pandemic and its lockdowns forced us to look hard at the health workforce that was bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 response, the construction sector which was being funded to keep the economy ticking over, and the hospitality workforce that was decimated by the long lockdowns, especially in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Our work on these 3 sectors is featured in this report, but as the single largest population and economic region in the country, we have also addressed the workforce and skill needs of all parts of the Tāmaki Makaurau region’s economy.

This report is the starting point for the Tāmaki Makaurau region. Over the next year, we will be consulting and working with everyone involved with our region’s labour market. We will be breaking down barriers and suggesting new ways of building a prosperous region that leaves no-one behind.

We wish to thank all the members of our RSLG for their collaborative work in producing this report. We also thank our Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Secretariat for going beyond the call of duty to ensure that we have a report of which we can all be proud.

Co-chairs

Tāmaki Makaurau Regional Skills Leadership Group Co-chairs Awerangi Tamihere, Robert reid


Left to right:
 Awerangi Tamihere, Robert reid