5. Question No. 5—Social DevelopmentHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social DevelopmentQuestion No. 5—Social Development5. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: What action is she taking if any to support the more than 1000 people who have lost their jobs and gone onto jobseeker support each day since the lockdown?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development: On behalf of the Minister for Social Development supporting people into work has always been part of this Government's agenda which is why at last year's Budget we announced an investment into 263 new work-focused case managers. We acted in early March establishing rapid response teams to support redeployment activities all across Ministry of Social Development regions. This has continued through the lockdown. We established the wage subsidy scheme and leave support schemes that have supported over 1.7 million Kiwis to stay connected to their employers. Last week I announced a range of initiatives to keep New Zealand working including an online recruitment tool. We have 35 new employment centres that are up and running and operating virtually to work with employers and clients to support accelerated redeployment.Hon Louise Upston: How many applications for jobseeker support have there been since the start of alert level 4 and how many have been declined? Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In reference to the second part of the question I don't have that information with me around declines. What I can say from publicly available information to the member is that it is around the 30000 mark of additional people on the jobseeker support.Hon Louise Upston: Does she have any estimates of how many people have lost their job since the start of alert level 4 but were not eligible for jobseeker support?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member would need to put a specific question like that down in writing.Hon Louise Upston: Does she believe that the 1000 people going on jobseeker support each day has peaked or will this number increase when the wage subsidy ends in a month?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Our forecasts around what will happen with New Zealand's unemployment rate have been provided by a large number of people. As with other countries in the world there is an expectation that we are facing a period of significant economic downturn. The Government is and will continue to do everything in our power to limit the number of people who find themselves in need of jobseeker support.Hon Louise Upston: What recent reports has she read if any on the social and health impacts of unemployment and what actions is she taking to reduce this harm?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister I'm not sure exactly what reports the Minister will have read around the health impacts of unemployment but it's certainly an issue that the Minister and this Government are very well aware of. It's why we have worked so hard to reduce unemployment in New Zealand taking it down to its lowest levels in a decade in the period leading up to COVID-19 and we'll continue to take that approach of prioritising reducing unemployment and hope to continue the success that we've had with that up until COVID-19.