Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: This investment is key to helping businesses keep people on and give them confidence when they're making decisions about taking on new apprentices. This will be essential as we roll out and fast track infrastructure projects. Without support of this kind after the global financial crisis, apprentices were let go, and when the economy picked up, New Zealand struggled with huge skills shortages and had to pay more to find skilled workers from overseas. As a result, there were 40,000 fewer people in industry training between 2009 and 2017. 