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Work homepage
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Overview
Find out what services we can offer to help you find work and when you start a new job.
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Looking for work
We have jobs available now in various industries and you can search on our job websites.
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Help with your job search
From advice on making a plan, to tips on where to look and following up leads.
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Training and experience
Our programmes can help you get ready for work with training and work experience.
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Job Connect on Facebook
Find out how we can help you get ready to work, find work, and support available while you're working.
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CVs and cover letters
We’ve got great templates and advice for writing your CV or cover letter, and filling out job applications.
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Help with work costs
Get help to pay for the things you need to start work
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Job support and advice
Get all the support and advice you need to stay in work.
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Health and disability
If you want to work, we can support you to find the right job for you.
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Start your own business
We can help you get your business up and running.
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Job interviews
Get advice about how to prepare for and deliver a great interview.
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Help for 16-19 year olds
We’ve got extra support for young people to get ready for work and find a job.
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Benefits and payments homepage
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Overview
Take a look at the range of benefits and payments we have available.
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Not working
Redundancy, health condition or disability or another reason you can’t work
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Living expenses
Food, school costs, power, accommodation or other living expenses you need help with
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Relationship changes
You’ve had a relationship break-up, family breakdown or violent relationship end
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Health and Disability
Counselling, prescription and GP costs, medical alarms and other costs we can help with
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Seniors
Travelling overseas, how to apply, payment rates and dates, overseas pensions, income and other info for Seniors
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Caring
Caring for someone else’s child or someone with a health condition, injury or disability
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Urgent or unexpected costs
Dental, glasses, car repairs, fridge, washing machine, funeral or other urgent costs you need help with
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Children
Childcare, school uniforms, stationery, having a baby and other costs if you have children
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Moving to New Zealand
Payments you can get from us, settling into NZ, overseas pensions and more.
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16-19 year olds
Education, training, work and benefit help for 16-19 year olds
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Benefits and forms
A-Z list of benefits, forms, benefit rates
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On a benefit homepage
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Overview
Check out what you need to do when you're getting a benefit or other payment from us.
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Something's changed
Address, contact details, overseas travel, childcare, relationship or anything else that’s changed.
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Income
Declare income and income deduction tables
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Childcare
Change in your childcare situation, continue childcare payments, cohort entry schools and other childcare information
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Going overseas
Going on holiday or going to live overseas
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Re-apply
Re-apply for Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support, Temporary Additional Support and more
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Payments
Check or stop your payments, payment cards and other information
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Debt
Check your debt, repayments and other debt information
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Rights and responsibilities
Our commitment to you, obligations, complaints, benefit fraud and more
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Housing homepage
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Overview
Find out how we can help you with housing.
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Nowhere to stay
Get help if you have nowhere to stay right now.
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Find a house
Find out where to look for private housing, or apply for public (social) housing.
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Living in your home
Get help with accommodation costs, and advice on any housing issues and public housing tenancies.
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Move house
Find out how we can help if you’re moving house.
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Using your information
Learn about how we use your information.
When we identify you
We need to identify you when we make decisions about you. This is so we can help you. For example, we'll need your name and date of birth to know who you are so we can give you a benefit.
We try not to identify you when we use your information to:
- look at how we operate
- design new services or tools.
This means we remove information, such as name and date of birth, before we use it for these reasons.
We use your information to:
We use your information to:
- work out what help we can give you
- work out your benefit payments
- work out what services will help you the most, including new services we're testing or trialling
- confirm you qualify for the support you get.
In some cases, we may use your information to:
- help you in an emergency, eg a flood or earthquake
- make sure people don't misuse the welfare system, eg, it helps us to manage debt and detect fraud
- keep us all safe when we're working together, eg, if you're aggressive to our staff or others, we may not let you into our site.
We use your information to make better decisions about:
- whether you need extra support from us
- how we can match our case managers' workload to clients who need that extra support.
To do this, we sometimes use our statistical predictive modelling tools.
Watch our video on:
How we operate as a Ministry
We use information to help us operate as a Ministry. This means we can make sure our systems run smoothly and our people are safe. We do this by:
- getting reports on how our benefit system is performing
- getting regular reports on things that may mean you pose a risk to our staff, e.g. aggressive interactions or if you've been trespassed from one of our offices
- completing assessments on you if we think you pose a risk to our staff or others, and
- regularly reviewing the way we operate.
We will use this information to do things like:
- make sure we have enough appointments available for you
- make sure our case managers can meet demand, and
- understand any risk that you can pose to our staff or others (if you do pose a risk, we'll change the way we interact with you).
How well our services work for you
We also use information to make sure our services help you. We do this by:
- reviewing the services we give you
- working with our providers to make sure their service is right for you.
We could do this in a general way, where we look at patterns or trends. Or we could have specific targets or outcomes we want to look at.
For example, we could trial a service with some clients to see if it's working well. We would then check this against other services to see what's most helpful.
Being transparent as a Ministry
We use information to show we're being transparent to the public. We do this by releasing regular reports on our performance, eg:
- Benefit factsheets
- Housing quarterly reports
- StudyLink statistics.
These reports go on the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) website.
We also use information to show we're meeting our obligations to the Government. These include:
- spending money in an effective and efficient way
- making progress on goals they have set for us.
We give the Government regular reports to show we're meeting our obligations.
Work out what to design
We use information to work out what kind of new services to design and who to design them for. For example, our information may tell us there are a lot of clients in Auckland that need help in a specific way.
We also use information to do research to help us to
- better understand what our clients need now and in the future
- get evidence to support our decision to trial something new.
Design and test
We use information to design new services or tools, and test them. For example, we use information to:
- design a new tool, such as myMSD or the eligibility guide, and test it. This helps us decide if the tool works in the best way for you
- design and trial a new service and test it. This helps us decide if we should continue, change or stop the trial.