Cut almost 9,000 public service jobs

National will axe almost 9,000 public service jobs and cut funding to government agencies to deliver $2.4 billion in savings over the next four years, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said in a pre-Budget speech on May 19.

Willis outlined three goals to shrink the sizer of government, reducing the number of core public servants to around 1.0% of the population (about 8,700 jobs), cutting public service funding so the $2.4 billion saved can be redirected to front-line services and ramping up the use of AI across government agencies.

“Our government is as frustrated as you are by the fragmentation and silos, the complexity, the status-quo thinking and the dangerously slow take-up of digital and AI technologies,” she said.

Read the LawNews article here.