The quarterly Household Labour Force Survey has shown strong employment growth in the March quarter, with 28,000 more jobs added to the New Zealand economy. 

“This is the second strong quarter of job growth in a row,” says Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce.  “Overall the economy has created 51,000 new jobs over the last six months, which underlines a strong economic bounce-back since the slower growth period in the first half of the 2015 calendar year.    

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today launched the Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge, which is tasked with conducting research to develop better housing and urban environments for New Zealanders in the 21st century.

The Challenge, the last of the eleven National Science Challenges to be launched, will receive funding of up to $47.9 million over a ten year period.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce and Sport and Recreation Minister Jonathan Coleman say the Government is investing up to $500,000 from the Major Events Development Fund into the 2016 Youth Sailing World Championship.

“This is a world-class sailing event which New Zealand has a proud heritage in. It’s great that we have been able to secure this opportunity to continue our fine record of hosting international sailing regattas,” Mr Joyce says.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has this evening opened Wellington’s new ICT Graduate School.

The Wellington ICT Graduate School is the second of three new schools around the country designed to lift the number of ICT graduates available to staff New Zealand’s fast-growing software and software services industry. 

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced a new university scholarship initiative for Indian students. The announcement was made with the President of the Republic of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee in Auckland.

Thirty five top Indian scholars are being offered the opportunity to study graduate and postgraduate programmes at all eight of New Zealand’s world class universities, including in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), fashion, and business related courses through the New Zealand Excellence Awards.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today launched the ‘Make the World’ Engineering to Employment (E2E) campaign to encourage more young people into a career in engineering.

‘Make the World’ will illustrate the wide range of choices available within engineering, with opportunities to design everything from life-saving medical equipment to the latest agricultural and manufacturing technologies.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce today announced three new appointments and five re-appointments to five tertiary education institution councils.

“I welcome the valuable knowledge and experience that the new appointees will bring into their new roles. I also welcome the reappointment of a number of council members in recognition of the high-quality leadership they have been providing to these institutions,” Mr Joyce says.

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today announced that three proposals to establish new Regional Research Institutes (RRIs) have been shortlisted and that applicants will now enter the business case development stage of the selection process.

Regional Research Institutes are to be new research centres developed in areas outside of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch that help build research and development intensity and lift innovation in key regional industries.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce today opened the NZ Exporters CEO Summit in Washington DC, with 11 New Zealand hi-tech exporters in attendance.

The Summit is being held to discuss new opportunities for NZ companies to participate in the world’s largest and most sophisticated government procurement market.

Economic Development and Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce leaves for the United States tomorrow to promote US-New Zealand business links, and leverage New Zealand’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA).

In August 2015, New Zealand joined the GPA, providing New Zealand companies guaranteed access to US government contracts.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today welcomed the opening of Canterbury University’s QuakeCore: Centre for Earthquake Resilience.

Mr Joyce also opened the University’s new Structural Engineering Laboratory which is the first building to be completed in the “Canterbury Engineering the Future” project funded by the Government in support of the University’s recovery. The laboratory will give researchers access to the latest earthquake technologies and is the largest facility of its type in New Zealand.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce today opened the QRC Tai Tokerau Resort College, a new tourism and hospitality management training campus in Northland that will provide training and job opportunities for local young people in the fast-growing tourism industry.

Legislation has passed this evening allowing New Zealand Business Numbers (NZBNs) to be allocated to all businesses operating in New Zealand.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce says this will be welcome news to businesses and government agencies.

“NZBNs are a key initiative of the Government’s Better for Business programme. They are a unique identifiers that reduce the time and energy businesses spend providing government the same information in different ways,” Mr Joyce says.

Eleven more start-up technology companies will be funded $450,000 each in repayable loans to help them commercialise their technology through Callaghan Innovation’s incubator network, Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce announced today.

A total of 18 companies have now been funded through Callaghan Innovation’s new technology incubators which have been set up to help commercialise complex, new to the world, intellectual property. Companies repay the grant when they begin to earn revenue from their venture.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today opened the Brain Research New Zealand Dementia Prevention Research Clinic in Auckland.

The clinic is part of the $29.8 million Brain Research Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE.) 

“The Clinic will allow New Zealand researchers to carry out world-leading studies about how to slow the progression of dementia,” Mr Joyce says.

The first clinic will open in Auckland and similar clinics are planned in Christchurch and Dunedin later this year.

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today announced the appointments of Stefan Korn and Andrew Hamilton to the Callaghan Innovation Stakeholder Advisory Group.

Callaghan Innovation is the government agency tasked with encouraging more research and development activity by businesses across New Zealand’s science and technology sector.

“These new appointments both bring extremely useful skills and insights to the advisory group and ensure Callaghan remains well connected with its stakeholders,” Mr Joyce says.

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce has welcomed the news that New Zealand companies are investing more in research and development, according to a Statistics New Zealand survey released today.

The Statistics New Zealand Business Operations Survey says business spending on R&D has grown by more than 15 per cent in one year, from $1.25 billion in 2014 to $1.44 billion in 2015.

The Canterbury Skills and Employment Hub which matches job seekers with employers will stay open until June 2018 to continue helping employers in the region meet their skills needs says Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Social Development Minister Anne Tolley.

The Hub was set up in November 2012 to help with the Christchurch rebuild and Canterbury’s wider economic recovery. It was due to shut in June 2016.

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Revenue Minister Michael Woodhouse have welcomed a further boost in repayments from overseas-based student loan borrowers.

Over the first two months of this year there was a 31 per cent increase in repayments by overseas based borrowers over the same period in 2015.  In January and February this year $29.7 million was received from overseas-based borrowers, compared with $22.7 million in January and February last year.

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce and Communications Minister Amy Adams have welcomed today’s announcement by Hawaiki confirming it will build a submarine cable linking New Zealand, Australia and the United States.

“Hawaiki’s new cable system will provide more international data choice and resilience for Kiwi consumers and business and help progress New Zealand’s digital economy.” Mr Joyce says.

New information has been released today which shows what graduates go on to earn once they have studied in different disciplines at universities and other tertiary providers.

Four factsheets on the national employment outcomes for young domestic graduates, released by the Ministry of Education, follow the earnings and employability of students for the first nine years following graduation. The information comes from a dataset administered by Statistics New Zealand using the earnings for each discipline based on actual tax returns.

The latest employment forecast from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment predicts the number of jobs in New Zealand will grow by another 148,300 over the next three years. 

The Short-Term Employment Forecasts: 2016-19 report, released today, predicts employment will grow an average of 2.1 per cent annually over the next three years.

“It is encouraging to see robust job growth is predicted to continue across the country,” says Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce.

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce today announced the government is investing $185,000 from the Major Events Development Fund into the 2016 and 2017 SkyCity New Zealand Badminton Open, which will be held in Auckland.

“The New Zealand Badminton Open has experienced strong growth and greater international status in recent years. Government investment will help to boost the profile of the event and also reflects the sport’s popularity in key trade and tourism markets,” Mr Joyce says.

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today launched Kākāpō 125 – a joint New Zealand Genomics Limited (NZGL) and Genetics Otago project that will sequence all the genomes of the kākāpō species.

“This is the first time genomes will be sequenced for an entire species population. This sequencing will allow scientists to refine their breeding programme so that each kākāpō chick has the best chance of growing into a healthy adult,” Mr Joyce says.