Employment dispute in Christchurch where a business faced consequences for dismissing an employee before their start date, resulting in an $18.5K payout.
Better access to employer-led numeracy and literacy training will be rolled out by the Government as automation and AI becomes more prominent in the workplace.
The Government announced $14.5 million over four years to support employees with numeracy and literacy skills as part of its Tripartite Future of Work Forum which aims to improve well-being and lift productivity.
Overall, the Government will contribute nearly $45 million to the employer-led workplace literacy and numeracy fund between 2019 and 2022.
EQ Consultants' Principal Consultant, Viv Patterson said: "Higher skilled employees benefit everyone. We worked closely with Conquest Training after the earthquakes during high levels of immigration. Businesses who relied on more overseas workers saw this as a great service to their teams and they hugely benefited as their employees were better able to complete document that was needed."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: “Automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly affecting jobs meaning New Zealand needs a population with high-level literacy and numeracy skills to build a high-productivity, high-wage economy and an inclusive society where everyone can participate.”
Education Minister Chris Hipkins added: “We’re making comprehensive changes to vocational education, including ramping up on-the-job training, and the extra funding means we can also look more closely at the benefits of embedding literacy and numeracy in other training.
“Putting a bigger focus on literacy and numeracy is something employers have told us they want, starting in schools.
“Through the changes we’re making in the NCEA, it’ll be clearer to employers that a learner has met a standardised benchmark, so they can have confidence that the NCEA [National Certificate of Educational Achievement] literacy and numeracy requirements are credible and reliable.”