Up to 70,000 job seekers are to receive individual assessments and a personalised job plan to help get them into work.
Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston says everyone who is supported by an employment case manager will be eligible to receive a work-readiness needs assessment to look at possible barriers to their employment such as education, transport, addiction, health, and childcare issues they may have.
The assessments will also look at issues such as reading and writing skills, how comfortable the person is with technology and history with the justice system.
The case manager and job seeker will be required to come up with a personalised plan including an agreed set of actions and a timeline for their completion.
Upston said the Ministry of Social Development was now offering phone-based case management to 10,000 people and they would be the first to get an Individual Job Plan.
From early 2025, the plans would be available to all people on benefits who are in Employment Case management - a total of 70,000 job seekers.
"Many of those who are at risk of long-term welfare dependency have complex backgrounds and may require more help to address all the issues affecting their employability," she said in a statement.
Louise Upston says the government is not prepared to accept taxpayers' money being spent on people who could be working. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Job Plans would look at someone's previous work experience and availability to provide them with "a proper assessment of their needs and the structure they need to address these risk factors", she said.
Anyone who failed to meet "work-testable actions" agreed with their case manager could face sanctions through the new Traffic Light System, she said.
"Job Plans will dig deeper than someone's previous work experience and availability, giving them a proper assessment of their needs and the structure they need to address these risk factors."
Upston said there were currently 1 percent of job seekers in the red level of the traffic system with more than 98 percent in the green level.
She stressed that sanctions would not apply if people were unable to find a job, only if the person was not taking steps to find one.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was a job seeker's job to engage with their case manager, to have a resume and show up for interviews.
In terms of whether people would be punished if they refused to move from where they lived for work, Upston said that would be a matter for them and their case managers to discuss and it would be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Luxon said more work needed to be done if the government was going to meet its target to reduce the number of people on Jobseeker Support.
The progress of the government's nine public service targets has been released for the September quarter.
It shows there are fewer victims of violent crime and fewer people in emergency housing - but the number of people on Jobseeker Support has increased by more than 8000 people.
Luxon said unemployment was still expected to increase before it came down, and he expected that was when the number of people on Jobseeker will start to come down.
"We don't have to wait for unemployment to reach peak and then start trending down for us to do everything we can and build the capacity and the capability in the MSD system to get people into work as more and more jobs appear as the economy gets better."
Meanwhile, Luxon said he was disappointed to see bipartisanship break down on foreign policy, now that Labour had ruled out joining any part of the Aukus pact.
The coalition government has been exploring whether to join the non-nuclear pillar of the defence pact.
Labour, which initially started exploring that idea while in government, now says that if it returns to office, New Zealand will not join the agreement.
Luxon said he found it ironic that Labour now opposed something it started.
"It was a bit sad to be honest to hear that party and politics has been placed ahead of country when we've actually worked incredibly hard and I know I did the same thing in opposition is that on foreign policy issues when the opposition has been exactly the same as the previous administration, we actually should have good alignment in that."
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