Winz training courses can be a "win-win-win" for employers and clients, a Hawke's Bay HR consultant says - despite national statistics showing low employment outcomes from such courses.
In the East Coast region, from Gisborne to Napier-Hastings, 408 people have been put through the new Work & Income NZ (Winz) training course Skills For Industry since 2012, official figures show. About a third of those people ended up in work on average, nationwide.
Employment training schemes funded by Winz to get beneficiaries into work have cost a nationwide total of $50.9 million since 2012, and that's to fund subsidies alone. In the East Coast region, $2.37 million has been spent since 2012 paying wage subsidies to employers, covering 894 work contracts.
Winz has not measured long-term outcomes of Flexi-Wages or the Skills For Industry programme, but nationwide figures revealed just a 36 per cent employment achievement eight weeks after course completion.
Previous programmes, including Training for Work, also showed a third of participants achieving employment. East Coast figures showed 971 people went through 13-week Training For Work courses, leading to just 221 employment outcomes.