Labour is putting Māori unemployment and workforce development at the centre of its Election 2026 campaign, promising a new investment in Māori-led trades and employment training if it returns to government.
The party says up to 3,000 Māori could benefit from the programme, which would fund marae, iwi trusts and Māori providers to design training around the skills employers need in their own communities.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the policy is aimed at Māori looking for their first job, people wanting to retrain and workers seeking the qualifications and skills needed to move into higher-paid employment.
Rather than establishing a single national training programme, Labour is proposing a contestable grant-based fund through which Māori organisations could develop and deliver their own programmes.
The model would bring together Māori providers and local employers, with training designed around actual workforce demand.
That could mean different approaches in different rohe, depending on the industries, employers and skills shortages within those communities.
Labour argues marae, iwi and Māori organisations are well placed to identify not only employment opportunities but the additional support some tauira need to complete their training and successfully transition into work.
The approach would combine practical skills development with mentoring and other support designed to help participants remain engaged through training and employment.
Labour says the policy builds on its previous Māori trades training programme, reporting that 81 percent of people who completed that programme moved into employment and 76 percent achieved a training outcome.
Those figures will become important as the policy faces scrutiny over its eventual cost, scale and ability to produce sustainable employment rather than simply short-term training outcomes.
Labour has not provided the total funding figure for the new programme in the information released with the announcement.
The Māori-led initiative would sit alongside Labour’s previously announced proposal to extend Apprenticeship Boost, forming part of a wider attempt to increase the country’s skilled workforce.
The announcement comes as Māori employment is becoming an increasingly significant issue heading towards November 7.
Labour says Māori unemployment is now more than twice the national unemployment rate and points to around one in five rangatahi Māori being out of work as evidence that a different approach is required.
The party is attempting to frame investment in training as both a social and economic policy — arguing that getting more Māori into skilled employment increases household incomes while also supplying workers to industries struggling to find appropriately trained staff.
For whānau, the difference between simply having a job and having skilled, secure and better-paid employment can be substantial.
Qualifications and transferable skills can improve earning potential over a lifetime and provide greater resilience when individual industries or employers experience downturns.
Labour Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson says the policy is based on allowing Māori organisations to design solutions around their own communities rather than imposing programmes from Wellington.
That makes the proposal about more than trades training.
It is also an argument for by Māori, for Māori delivery, with government providing funding while Māori organisations determine how training and employment pathways should work on the ground.
For regional communities, that could also provide an opportunity to train people for jobs closer to home rather than requiring rangatahi to leave their rohe to find education or employment.
As with the growing number of economic policies being released ahead of Election 2026, the next question will be how the programme is funded and how much each successful employment or training outcome would cost.
Labour has set a target of reaching up to 3,000 Māori and has provided previous programme outcomes as evidence that the model can work.
What remains to be seen is the total investment required, how grants would be distributed, which industries would be prioritised and how Labour would measure whether participants move into secure and sustained employment.
But the political proposition is clear.
With Māori and particularly rangatahi Māori facing significant employment pressures, Labour is betting that investing directly in Māori-led skills, training and employment pathways can help tackle unemployment while building the workforce needed for future economic growth.
Heading towards November 7, that puts another question before voters: whether reducing Māori unemployment requires simply creating more jobs — or investing in Māori organisations to ensure whānau have the skills and opportunities to secure the better-paid jobs that already exist and those still to come.
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