Digital ITP Skills Workstream – Draft Report

The Industry Transformation Plan as a whole looks at what we need to do to scale up and transform our sector to lead New Zealand’s economic development. This work is being lead by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) alongside NZTech.

The Skills Workstream assembled a Steering Group who oversaw the compilation of significant research and data to test assumptions we all make about skills in our sector. The group then undertook a number of hui and other consultation to figure out what we can do about it.

The report is a significant step forward and has found that:

• The tech industry’s “Skills Shortage” is actually more a “Skills Mismatch“, in that there’s a significant mismatch between the skills available and the skills needed by our industry. It’s not just about more people.
• Our domestic skills pipeline is broken. There are lots of points of failure and no one silver bullet will fix it. But we have a plan.
• We have an over-reliance on immigration and it’s not sustainable. Immigration is extremely important for our industry and for New Zealand, however the current levels – with around 55% of new roles being filled through immigration rather than domestic talent development – is simply unsustainable.
• Our industry needs to step up. Compared with other industries, we do a very poor job of developing our people. We don’t give enough students a good start into our industry, don’t invest sufficiently in developing talent, and have a tendency to only focus on the short-term when it comes to skills.
• Industry, Government and the Education Sector have to work together if we want to solve the skills challenges in our sector. All play a crucial role and the level of engagement and investment needs to increase significantly.

So what do we do about it?

This report is a wakeup call

Our industry is suffering greatly from a mismatch of skill supply and demand, however the only way we’re going to fix this long-term is if we invest in domestic development.

And we have a plan. The draft Plan outlines 10 Actions that New Zealand needs to take, each with a set of initiatives. There is no silver bullet, and each Action is addressing a different part of the broken pipeline.

But do we have it right?

We really need your input before the draft plan is finalised.

Once you’ve had a look at it, let us know what you think. Provide feedback here

The draft plan is open for consultation and feedback until Friday 30 July.

We have a huge opportunity to fix the skills pipeline for good, but only by working together. We need your help so we can make the plan better.

Kind regards,

– The ITP Skills Team