Overworked and Overlooked: CPAG Student Employment Toolbox

In February 2024, CPAG launched the research report Overloaded and Overlooked: Investigating How Poverty Drives School Students into Paid Work which raised concerns that an increasing number of school-aged students were taking on excessive hours of paid work on top of their school work.

The last time New Zealand school students in paid work were subject to governmental research was in 2010 by the Department of Labour – which no longer exists.

Current monitoring and assessment of the issue is de-coupled between different ministries and treated as separate issues. As of early 2024, Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) has plans on young people’s successful transition from education into employment, and the Ministry of Education has plans to assist with their educational engagement.

It is unclear whether these approaches are coordinated and strategic or are siloed or perhaps even contradict one another. It is also unclear whether either of the approaches considers poverty as a driver of youth behaviour.

LIMITED RESEARCH INTO THE ISSUE:

• Schoolchildren in Paid Employment (Department of Labour, 2010)

• The Health and Wellbeing of New Zealand Secondary School Students in 2012 (The University of Auckland, 2012)

• Youth19 Rangatahi Smart Survey Initial Findings (The University of Auckland, 2019)

• Youth health and wellbeing survey — What About Me? (MSD, 2021)

• Missing Out: Why Aren’t Our Children Going to School? (ERO, 2022)

MEDIA STORIES ON THE ISSUE:

• 15,000 Teenagers working up to 50 hours to support families (RNZ, 2024)

• Charity warns poverty is forcing families to send children to work instead of schools (Newshub, 2024)

• High school students working all night to support families (TVNZ, 2023)

• Govt 'doing nothing' for school students supporting families (TVNZ, 2023)

• Some school kids working full-time to help pay the bills (RNZ, 2023)

• Study or work to support families, Pasifika students face tough choices (RNZ, 2022)

• Businesses are illegally employing students during school hours, principals say (Stuff, 2020)

• Coronavirus: Fears teens working to support families won't return to school (Stuff, 2020)

• School-work balance for students urged (Rotorua Daily Post, 2014)