Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (remote): In December 2017, there were 36,906 people receiving jobseeker assistance for longer than three years; in December 2021, that number was 55,116—a difference of 18,210. We have been enduring a pandemic and the overall numbers of people on benefit have gone up, and, as you can imagine, that means in each time period the number of people on benefit have gone up as well. There are a group of New Zealanders who struggle to find employment during periods of economic shock and are further disadvantaged. This is why Government has increased our focus on getting people back into work, and we are seeing great results—more people moved off the benefit and into work in 2021 than any time since the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) began taking electronic records in 1996.