Supporting strong, connected workforce pathways is a critical focus for South Waikato and an area where collaboration and shared leadership matter more than ever.
Through Project Phoenix, SWIFT is leading a district‑wide piece of work focused on strengthening the education‑to‑employment pathway, ensuring young people can move from school into further education, training, or work with greater clarity, confidence, and support.
What is Project Phoenix?
Project Phoenix is a collective, place‑based workforce initiative that brings together partners across South Waikato, including schools, employers, iwi, training providers, council and community organisations – to better understand how the workforce system operates as a whole, and where it can work better for our young people.
The kaupapa emerged in response to growing pressures across the workforce system, including:
Skills shortages across key industries
Fragmented and confusing pathways for rangatahi leaving school
Limited coordination between education, training and employment providers
Rather than responding in isolation, Project Phoenix creates space for shared understanding, coordinated action, and locally grounded solutions.
An evidence‑informed approach
A key feature of Project Phoenix is its strong evidence base. SWIFT led the commissioning of the South Waikato Workforce, Employment and Training Needs Study, delivered by Veros, to provide a shared foundation of data that all partners can work from.
The study highlighted:
Persistent workforce shortages across trades and processing roles
The importance of foundational skills such as confidence, communication, and reliability
Challenges for young people navigating transitions after school, often described as a “cliff edge”
These findings continue to inform how Project Phoenix is shaped and where effort is focused.
What's happening now
In 2026, SWIFT has stepped into supporting both coordination and delivery of the next phase of work. This includes moving from system understanding toward practical action.
One of the key initiatives currently underway is a collaboration with the Young Enterprise Scheme, bringing tauira from across South Waikato secondary schools together to explore a shared challenge:
How might we design the path from school into work to be clear, accessible, and exciting for every student – no matter their grades, interests, or background?
Working directly with rangatahi ensures their lived experience, aspirations, and ideas are central to shaping future pathways, not an afterthought.
Alongside this, SWIFT continues to engage with education and training providers, employers, and partners to strengthen alignment and reduce duplication across the system.
For South Waikato to thrive, young people need pathways that are visible, supported, and achievable. Project Phoenix recognises that no single organisation can deliver this alone, but together, we can build something stronger and more connected.
By convening partners, grounding decisions in evidence, and keeping rangatahi at the centre, Project Phoenix is helping to lay the foundations for a more resilient workforce future for our district.
We look forward to sharing further updates as this mahi continues and as new initiatives begin to take shape.
