Auckland focus for $21.2m job skills strategy

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Migrant job seekers are big winners in the Budget lollyscramble, with Auckland getting a bulk $21.2 million to train immigrants and fill the region's skill shortages.

Yesterday's Budget allocated $152.8 million over four years to get people into the paid workforce, an increase on the $131 million allocated in last year's Budget.

The $21.2 million Auckland Metropolitan Migrant and Refugee Strategy is a new initiative to recognise the area's high number of migrants and their difficulties in getting work. It will develop and expand employment coaching programmes, offer multilingual services and assist in skill development.

There is also $894,000 allocated in the Budget to improve access to English as a second language training for migrant job seekers.

The Government will also increase the number of subsidised childcare hours from 37 to 50, starting in June, intended to help low-income parents into work.

The income threshold for Family Support and Child Tax Credit will also be raised from next April.

Those two measures will cost $59 million over four years.

Also allocated:

* $52 million to Work & Income to tailor job training to the needs of employers.

* $4 million to promote the employment potential of youth, mature and migrant job seekers.

* $1.5 million to the Department of Labour to work with industries and regions experiencing labour and skill shortages.

* $8.6 million over the next four years for the Community Employment Organisations scheme, previously a pilot.

* $5.7 million to improve internet-based work resources such as WorkSite and KiwiCareers.

* $17.6 million to establish a programme to crack down on benefit overpayments.

Education, a bugbear of many executives, received an extra $393 million for this financial year, steadily increasing over the next three years. By 2006-07, the total invested in education will be $8.6 billion a year.

That news came after the drip-feeds of the last week, which included 774 extra teaching positions.