A Labour Party proposal to tax employers who are not providing training is doomed to fail, and could hurt smaller businesses, industry members say.
Labour Party finance spokesperson Grant Robertson gives details at the release of his final Future of Work report. Photo: RNZ / Chris Bramwell
Labour announced its plan for the levy yesterday, with the aim of encourage industries to provide training for the local workforce rather than rely on migrants from overseas.
The levy, which would then be used to fund workplace training, is one of 63 recommendations in the Future of Work document released at the party's annual conference in Auckland.
Firms that could show they were actively engaged in training would be exempt.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts said most employers in his industry and many others were already providing training.
"Any employer faced with this sort of levy would say 'well, we are training our staff, we are providing development opportunities for our staff, so don't tax us'.
"And I think they would quickly find that there are very few employers in this category [of not providing training], so the whole thing would fall on its face pretty quickly."
Mr Roberts said more needed to be done to help people get the right skills before they moved into the workforce.
Meanwhile, Business New Zealand warned such a tax might mean smaller businesses would suffer.
Its chief executive Kirk Hope said many employers could not get local staff in the first place.
Mr Hope said small businesses also might not have the capacity to deliver training.
"If you think about a small to medium sized business that can't get the skills that it needs to grow, it will then also be negatively affected by being taxed, so that is not a helpful solution.
Mr Hope said a subsidy for businesses to help them deliver training would be more helpful.