Public sector cuts: Voluntary redundancies at Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment bring its tally of job losses to 341, Govt total to 4000

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment building in Wellington. Photo / RNZ, Dom Thomas

By RNZ

The latest round of voluntary redundancies at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has lifted RNZ’s count of public sector job cuts to more than 4000.

The ministry - which employs 6650 staff - accepted an additional 59 voluntary redundancies last week, bringing its total job losses to 341 fulltime positions.

In January, Finance Minister Nicola Willis directed ministries and agencies to slash expenditure to help reduce annual public service spending by $1.5 billion.

Agencies where fulltime positions had grown by more than 50 per cent since 2017 were directed to cut costs by at least 7.5 per cent, while others were tasked with saving 6.5 per cent.

Cuts were also being made beyond the core public sector, with losses at Crown entities such as WorkSafe and Callaghan Innovation, and Crown research institute Niwa.

MBIE previously confirmed 286 jobs were going, or had already gone, with some cuts already in place ahead of Willis’ announcements, while others happened during a round of voluntary redundancies in March.

MBIE deputy secretary Richard Griffiths said the ministry was taking a “measured approach” to workforce reduction to deliver the Government’s work programme.

“A number of ongoing actions to actively manage the size of our workforce have contributed to this, including the removal of vacant positions, offering two limited voluntary redundancy processes, implementing stopwork notices, legislation repeal and initiating a range of consultation and change processes.”

The organisation was focused on supporting staff who may be impacted by the continued changes at the ministry, Griffiths said.

- RNZ