Our youth employment action plan: Setting our young people on a strong pathway to fulfilling working lives

A cross-system lens is used to identify how different government systems, such as the education and welfare systems, are experienced by a particular group. In the case of this Action Plan, this approach recognises that young people can often require a range of services from across the different systems and aims to highlight where there are opportunities to improve how the systems work together to support better outcomes. Young people (15 – 24-year-olds) have amongst the highest levels of unemployment and non-participation in education or training of all age groups. We also know that early education, training and employment experiences have long-lasting effects on wages later in life, adult employment and life satisfaction. Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people and people with caring responsibilities have amongst the highest levels of unemployment and/or non-participation in education or training in this age group. The Action Plan highlights the strengths of New Zealand’s system of education, training and employment supports already in place, but also areas that we need to work on. This Action Plan sets out the actions that government agencies are committed to undertaking, together with community partners, to build on and improve the pipeline of support we have in place to: › prevent young people from falling into unemployment and/or non-participation in education or training and put in place the building blocks for success through earlier identification and effective interventions to better build labour market preparedness › support young people to make informed choices and good transitions in a complex environment through better careers guidance and job brokering; creating better incentives to employ and train people with challenges; strengthening partnerships with whānau, hapū, iwi, and community; expanding effective pastoral care/mentoring to those that need it; promoting more collaboration and connectivity across services; and scaling effective interventions › ensure young people have employment opportunities and access to the support they need to overcome barriers and get back on track through increasing driver licence uptake and creating employment opportunities.