MBIE sheds almost 300 jobs in three months, more likely to go

Thursday, 11 April 2024

The mega-ministry, MBIE, that the ACT Party has said it would like to see halved has already shed almost 300 roles this year,The Post can reveal, and even more are likely.

In the first three months this year, 286 roles at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment were removed through “a variety of actions” that included voluntary redundancy, stop work notices and removing vacant positions.

Currently, MBIE has restructuring proposals under way that could result in job losses, while its second round of voluntary redundancies closed on Tuesday. Decisions on those will made next week.

MBIE deputy secretary of corporate services and finance Richard Griffiths said processes were under way within MBIE that proposed further role reductions.

That included within its Digital, Data and Insights (DDI) Group, which The Post revealed in March was undergoing a restructuring proposal. The Post has been told by a staff member within that group that about 35 net roles could go.

Griffith confirmed that restructuring may result in a reduction of staff, and said the number was not confirmed “until after final decisions have been made and this change process is still subject to feedback from our people”.

That’s not all. “Two formal change processes are also active in our Te Whakatairanga Service Delivery group – Employment Services and Engagement and Experience,” Griffiths said.

Last week, The Post reported a proposal to reduce its Information and Education team by 30 roles - a quarter of the team, which sits within the Engagement and Experience unit.

Following that, Griffiths said even more “formal change processes” were likely “as we work to streamline and achieve further efficiencies”.

MBIE’s first round of voluntary redundancies resulted in 111 people leaving last month and another 87 roles were disestablished as a result of certain projects being stopped.

In 2023, there were 6,282 full time equivalent roles at MBIE. Almost 2000 of those were inspectors and regulatory officers, and 1200 were described as information professionals.

The MBIE news follows another day of cuts, with DOC looking at disestablishing about 270 roles, establishing 140 new ones - with a net reduction of about 130.

The biggest cuts were to regional operations, ‘Biodiversity, Heritage & Visitors’ and policy and regulatory services, the Public Service Association said.

A DOC spokesperson said in a statement it expected the impact on people to be less than the 130 net overall reduction, “because we have been holding a large number of vacancies since November”.

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka said he had been briefed about the proposal and it was “a pretty difficult time as we go through these proposals”.

On what he considered frontline, Potaka said, “those rangers who are out there engaging with communities making sure the environment is protected, as opposed to, let’s say, people that are working in offices in Wellington”.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the DOC proposal was “whack”.

She said they needed enough “to ensure that we are protecting our precious natural wildlife, and the DOC cuts are going to impact on the conservation work, absolutely”.

“It’s appalling.”