OUR ROLE

The Department of Labour’s primary role is to improve the performance of the labour market and, through this, the strength of both the economy and the quality of New Zealanders’ lives.

Our work is designed to help New Zealand shift to a high-performing economy where all people can participate in work, and where valuable work is done which rewards people well, through:

New Zealand’s connections with the rest of the world
productive, well-run and innovative workplaces
ensuring the skills of our workers match the needs of our enterprises
ensuring all New Zealanders have access to well-paid and meaningful employment.

A new emphasis

The Department’s role and focus will change over time in line with labour market and immigration trends. For over 100 years, the Department has provided a mixture of services and variety of functions around work, more recently across the interdependent portfolios of Labour, Immigration, ACC, and Social Development and Employment.

Our major roles have been to provide policy and legislative advice to the government through a period of major changes in ACC, employment, industrial and employment relations, immigration and health and safety legislation, as well as enforcement and service delivery. For the last two decades, unemployment has been a key issue and our primary policy focus has been on getting people into work and ensuring that their working conditions are safe and fair.

We will continue to deliver many core services to meet government objectives and customer needs, including mediation services for employment problems, processing student, work and visitor visas and permits, and visiting workplaces to provide health and safety assistance. However, in the new environment of low unemployment, our focus has turned to improving workplace and workforce performance, with a particular focus on participation, skills and productivity.

Workforce and workplace transformation

New Zealand’s future economic prosperity will require a transformation in the way participants in the labour market use and develop skills in the workplace. Workplaces will need to be transformed to produce high-value products and services to give them an edge over international competitors, while also supporting their workers to lead high-quality working lives.

These shifts need to be supported by a learning system that actively aligns the supply of skilled labour to the current and future needs of our industries, and through measures that will ensure that employers are able to access the largest possible pool of workers. We will also need an immigration programme that builds the cultural richness of our country, while targeting talented and skilled workers to support the further development of our industries.

In line with the Government’s focus for its new term, the Department of Labour has been reviewing and re-orientating the work it does to better target the needs of the workforce and workplaces, and to contribute to economic transformation.

New purpose statement: To make New Zealand a world leader in workforce and workplace performance

The Department’s new purpose statement reflects this sharpening of focus:

We are aiming to achieve excellent workforce and workplace performance – a high-performing labour market: high productivity, high participation, high skill levels and high-performing industry sectors and regions.
We are aspiring to be at the forefront internationally – competitive in attracting and retaining the workforce we need and in creating economic value in our workplaces.
We want to achieve valuable outcomes for New Zealand – balancing the needs of employers and employees for economic and social development.