Relevant job training gets top priority

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 1

Relevant job training gets top priority

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The “new deal” for the unemployed, announced by the Government yesterday puts the emphasis on training for real jobs.

It will cost an estimated $3OO million a year — about the same as is now spent — and represents more a reallocation of spending than a commitment to spend more. The package has three main aims: to equip people with marketable skills, to give special assistance to the specially disadvantaged and to provide funding for essential community services

Features are: • The Training Assistance Programme or T.A.P.: Described by the Minister of Employment, Mr Burke, as an attempt to move away from ad hoc sticking-plaster policies, it will replace S.T.E.P.S. (the Schoolleavers Training and Employment Preparation Scheme), Y.P.T.P. (the Young Persons Training Programme) and A.R.P. (the Adult Retraining Programme). Their failure, Mr Burke said, was evident in the co-

existence of dole queues and large numbers of job vacancies for skilled workers.

T.A.P. will begin in January, next year, and is designed to provide training relevant to local labour market demands. Flexibility is the key; there will be no stand-down period, no age limitations and no time restrictions on courses except those provided on subsidy in the workplace where a 20week limit will be imposed. Trainees will be paid an allowance.

Funding will also be available through D.E.T.A.C.S (District Employment and Training Advisory Committees) .to any organisations or groups wanting to hire a consultant to prepare a T.A.P. proposal or wanting to train individuals to become teachers under the scheme.

• Maori and Pacific Island Employment: Pilot

schemes are already in place to develop the economic bases of both communities as the unemployment rate in both is particularly high. The response has been good and the level of funding is to increase next financial year to $12.5 million for Maoris and to $2.5M for Islanders.

• Assistance for the disadvantaged: This consists of adding to the Job Opportunities Scheme to make special provision for those people who are finding it difficult to integrate into the workforce because of physical or psychological disability. A flat-rate subsidy of $250 a week for the first 12 months, reducing to $l5O for the next 12, will be available to employers of such persons subject to two requirements; they must provide a supportive work environment and they must agree to a clear training or

work experience programme tailored to meet the needs of each individual. In addition, help will be available to groups such as gangs who, even though they may be hostile to authorities and institutions, may be able to achieve something if given the chance to work together on a project of their own choosing. A subsidy of $lOO a week for two years will be paid to each member of the group to finance them in the initial stages of the venture and until they have become self-supporting. Mr Burke said the numbers under both programmes would be restricted to ensure resources were “properly targeted.” ® S.C.O.P.E. (the Small Co-operative Enterprises Scheme) is to be expanded by 15 staff and $BOO,OOO a year.

As the new measures are introduced, the fully-sub-sidised employment programmes—P.E.P. (Project Employment Programme), W.S.D.P. (Work Skill Development Programme), V.O.T.P. (Voluntary Organisations Training Programmes) and W.R.P. (Work Rehabilitation Programme) will be phased out. Mr Burke said the winddown process should be completed by March 31, 1987, and that all persons employed on P.E.P. and V. schemes would be allowed to complete their terms while those on W. and W.R.P. would be given adequate notice and help in making “other choices.”

Special provision will be made for those few depressed rural areas, such as Kaitaia, where the programmes have become an important part of the local economy.

In such places, the phaseout time will be increased to three years. Mr Burke was critical of the P.E.P. scheme, saying that it had failed to create new jobs Between 1980 and 1985, he

said, the number of P.E.P. workers employed by local •authorities had risen 8000 while about 7000 permanent positions had been lost. In the funding of essential community services, the present V.O.T.P. programme is to be phased out over the next 18 months and replaced by a more flexible scheme.

Funds to $2O million in the first year will be available through a special grants committee for salaries, full and part-time job sharing and volunteer expenses. No time constraint will be placed on any of these payments. This is less restrictive than under V.O.T.P. where funding is limited to one full-time salary for one year, payable only to persons drawn from the Labour Department’s employment register. People already placed in V.O.T.P. projects will be able to finish their term under the old rules and, to effect a smooth transition, approvals under the scheme from next April will be for six months rather than 12 and none will be made after September. The $2O million budget will be spent in two ways—-

grants will be provided directly to a small number of organisations with a national structure. They are: 1.H.C., Women’s Refuge and Rape Crisis Centres, Te Kohanga Reo, Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation and the Disabled Training Course.

For other groups, access will be through a local distribution system allowing communities to set their own priorities. More details will be released on these next year. Mr Burke said the package was the first step in a two-stage process to move New Zealand from a passive to an active approach to employment promotion and from a centralised to a regional structure. Both shifts, he said, were of profound importance. The next step will be taken when the reports on ACCESS Transition Education and Training have been studied and when the submissions to the Green Paper on Vocational Training have been received, some time early next year. The Employers’ Federation yesterday welcomed the package saying that by raising the skills of the unemployed, it should con-

tribute to job creation.

“The S.T.E.P.S. and Y.P.T.P. schemes have served young people well but this new programme promises to be even more worthwhile because it is more flexible,” the federation’s deputy executive director, Mr Ray Taylor, said.

He also welcomed the 112.5 million being set aside

for Maori initiatives as an important opportunity for the Maori community to help its own people and to create employment. The package was also welcomed by the president of the Manufacturers’ Federation, Mr Keith Tyrrell, as an initiative aimed at possibly the county’s most challenging problem.

“If this country is to regain the standard of living many of us still expect we need the contribution of every latent talent we possess,” Mr Tyrrell said. “My federation believes the time is past when we can afford to pay people to do nothing,” he said. Many companies especially in the sunrise industries, were unable to secure the trained people their undertakings needed.