Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
The Daily PollTHE GOVERNMENT’S much-heralded JobBridge internship scheme has been the subject of controversy since its launch earlier this year.
The scheme, which sees the unemployed receive €50 a week from the government on top of their social welfare payment, aims to “assist in breaking the cycle” of unemployment by allowing jobseekers to gain valuable experience. However, it has been criticised as a way for less scrupulous employers to exploit free labour. Yesterday, training agency Fás admitted to the Irish Times that it had to remove a number of positions advertised on the site as they were “not in accordance” with the scheme’s aims.
The scheme has also come under fire from employers, who have suggested that excess red tape is preventing jobseekers taking up opportunities.
Writing on TheJournal.ie last night, employer Aaron McKenna argued that the scheme is a good one – but the government needs to be more vigilant in policing the positions advertised.
So what do you think? Is the JobBridge scheme worthwhile?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
It’s good for me now, I’ve finished college this year, but I can’t imagine if I had been working 15 years I’d be too impressed with it.
@Orlaith: You never have been in a real difficult situation i t seems. Welfare is not getting money for free but help for people who need it. And it is NOT fun and money for free!!!!! You know how much it is?????
@Orlaith, not all people on the dole want to be on it. Due to being out of work I undertook volunteering positions so I hope this ‘contributes to society’ in your eyes. Also, I doubt if disabled people would agree with your comment, do you think they do not want to ‘contribute to society’ either???
If you spend time doing work that makes money for someone else and you dont get paid for it. Slavery
Its called the exploitation of the proletariat brother but in this case if people see it as a means to getting experience they would not normally get in these times I think it’s positive.
I think its good idea to work as in intern for maximum 3 months. 6 or 9 months is far too much unless a company is willing to take you and give you a full time job! I have over 15 years of experience, 2 BA degrees and one Master degree, I have no job at the moment and I am thinking now to do some internship for some jobs where I can gain some valuable experience as well as a chance of staying in that company as a full time employee.
But to be honest, if I notice that employer is treating me as a free labor and if I am not getting experience that I was looking for, I would definitely quit!
The scheme amounts to a massive subsidy to private sector businesses. The government is (under) paying the would-be employees’ wages. After everything the banks have done to this country, we have now turned around and offered to pay people to work for them.
Calling for better regulation of the scheme is all well and good, but in the short time the scheme has been in place we’ve heard lots of stories about people being let go only to have their old duties taken up by interns.
The intern scheme should be restricted to non-profit organisations and private businesses where a clear path from legitimate training as an intern to paid worker can be demonstrated.
I think it’s a great idea, everyone on the dole should contribute something to society and not just get their money for free, unless they are disabled.
What about the people who have contributed to society paying taxes for longer than you have been alive but find themselves out of work now?
Welfare system is fucked as it is. I’m 22 and apparently I’m classed as being dependant on my parents. They make a reasonable amount of money as successful business people, but that doesn’t mean they give me any.
I made my way through school and University without a cent from this absolute shambles of a state, so presumably if I can use my brain to get by, as well as serious ambition as opposed to those eejits receiveing ‘job seeker’ allowance, then everyone should be in the same boat?
I’v just got myself a job, paying less than minimum wage, and so in turn I’m coming out with less than some sh1ts on the dole? I agree with @Orlaith, everyone should take their finger out and contribute something.
Hey Orlaith, do you mind telling me how you know people on the dole are not already contributing to society.
Or more to the piont can you tell me how working for free to increase the profit of other individuals actually contributes to society?
It really annoys me when people say the dole is free money, it’s not. When a citizen pays prsi it’s that insurance payment that covers their unemployment payment.
On the dole, disabled and volunteering, so Orlaith disabled people can and do contribute to society !
I agree with you Orlaith.
When I was unemployed I would have worked for free. I was only unemployed for month and didn’t sign on, but had I signed on I would have done anything I could to get off the dole and in the meantime either unskilled or volunteered in the community.
Orlaith, as someone who has recently become unemployed, all I can say is that I’ve contributed by way of PRSI for the last twenty years. It is not money for free. How dare you!
If the fascist-leaning types think I’m going to work for nothing just to get something I’ve already paid for, they can think again.
Orlaith… I will wager that I have paid more tax in a single month that you have yet to see in a your monthly pay packet. I have just started a job after 6 months of unemployment. You’re barking up the wrong tree, the real drains on society are the morons who got us into this mess in the first place and short sighted, narrow minded twits like you
Well I voted Yes after thinking….as there might be a chance after the internship to be taken over ?! Better than doing absolute nothing…… It is soo good and necessary to get out and make contacts. I am in a CE scheme after having been years DESPERATELY on welfare. It is also temporary but doors I never saw before are appearing…so I guess it is ONE way…..
this will really damage people who work casual hours which change from week to week (bars, hotels etc.), if there’s an intern there already, you’re boss might not want to call in you for the extra few hours work and you lose out.
That’s a really important point about the wider effects on all workers of internships.
Just as cutting SNAs affects all children and will lead to greater costs down the line, allowing companies to hire the unemployed for nothing undermines the wages and conditions of everyone else and reduces the number of real job opportunities.
In this case, as with so many other government measures primarily targeting the most vulnerable, we are all in this together because attacking them hurts everyone else too – apart from businesses exploiting free labour and rich people who avoid higher taxes through cuts in education, health and social welfare instead.
it’s a good idea but sadly does not work most of the time….some friends of mine have done these internships only to be yelled at ,asked to work overtime(when stated on the docket 40 hours) and not learn anything they didnt already know before they started……for some(and not all) jobs it has become a way for them to get in free work(and thats what it is there not paying you ) and take advantage of it and i’am sure fas have screened out most of the bad apples but then again its fas they fuck up more than they help really ….so over all a great idea but as always a bad plan rolled out.and it still rolls bacvk to the same one problem ….there are no incentives for companies to come here and set up,its the one thing i have heard nothing about (am if i’am wrong please tell me).it should slove all problem’s…more companies here = more jobs=less on the dole=people shopping more =a better ecommony ….
everybody have a great day .
It could work if it was properly monitored, but I don’t see why we should be subsidising for companies to get free cleaning staff, waiting staff, tyre fitters, vagina sparklers, web designers, social media specialists and office managers.
The focus should be on mentorship and training, so that people have relevant training, skills and experience at the end of their internship. The ads should focus on what the intern will be getting out of the experience and who will be mentoring them.
Companies should be looking for interns in their fields of expertise rather than free office managers, IT support and website/social media support.
I just don’t understand why there isn’t more serious moderation in place – it would have saved this scheme from being a laughing stock.
Sigh. This is the kind of youth culture this current recession is breeding, people who haven’t a clue about life yet ALREADY bitter about those on welfare – probably an attitude fostered by their equally bitter “Tax-Payer” parents or the general atmosphere these days. Blasting their hate-mongering speech and uninformed bitter opinions about the people who are the very victims of this recession everywhere they can. Those who never worked in the boom, those are the people to target with your bile, NOT the people who have worked and PAID into the system that they are duely receiving their entitlements from in their time of need.
Oh and on topic, I think the scheme is a good Idea if it is policed properly, if there are paid jobs at the end of the internship and it is not exploited by unscrupulous employers.
It’s not policed at all. No-one will even answer an email, There’s zero garauntee of a job at the end. There’s a good idea in there but with no moderation it’s a disaster.
I think it would work for those people who are just out of college or school and on the dole, who are finding it completely impossible to get a job because of their lack of experience. It could also be beneficial to those who are contemplating changing career path because of the lack of jobs in their area of experience. The vast majority of people who are now out of work have not chosen to be – comments like they need to give something back to society are complete nonsense. There are a very small minority of people who choose the dole as their career but that is a completely different matter. For those who have not chosen it, actually having something to do with their time is always better.
I do a lot of voluntary work so please dont give me the sit at home and do nothing, I contribute to society by enriching society not individual business people.
The scheme is shite!
If you do work that is valuable to the company you get paid for it, its the basis of the economy. Attended 3 of these interview, every single company was not offering an internship but a job that needs qualification and experience, its a scam.
You seem to be missing 2% somewhere? 38+47+12+1=98% :-)
I assume it’s a rounding error
Course it is…I was only taking the mick…
Now it all makes cents
for school leavers it’s a great idea. I did this kind of work emperience in the 1980s. It was £30 per week and if i remember rightly the payment came from FAS. I was in an office environment and I did learn a lot, in fact i’ve never looked back. It’s always difficult to get your first job and this can be a way of making important contacts. If you are good at what you do and make the right impression either the company you do the experience with will make you an offer or will recommend you to others.
It’s also particularly ironic that the government made such a play of restoring the minimum wage and then introduced a system were the minimum wage is effectively €5.95 an hour. Even taking into account the now outrageously high taxation of people on the minimium wage, this works out at €1 an hour less after tax – which was the same amount that FF-GP originally cut off the minimum wage.
Clear majority here in favour of the scheme with call for improvements.
It’s a big change from the chorus of trade union and socialist types crying “slavery” and other criticisms .
People who’d rather they sit at home and wait patiently for a job to come.
Low wage is better than No wage.
This is a good scheme. Let’s make it work.
I don’t know how you could take that from the results of the poll which show 85% oppose the scheme as it actually exists! It’s all very well to imagine some illusory intern scheme where people would not be exploited but there is zero prospect of that happening in the current climate, given the scheme’s main purpose is to massage the statistics and subsidise employers.
But there is no wage.
42% of people think it is not worthwhile at all and 85% of people don’t agree that it is a good scheme in its current form.
http://jobbridgetonowhere.tumblr.com/
We are taking the money we were investing in meeting our obligations to children with special needs and using it to pay for a removal company’s webdesigner and hotel cleaners.
What poll were you reading?
My father used to say ‘If you work for nothing ,you will never be unemployed’ So this internship idea is anti worker, anti pay , but very much pro exploitation of the poor and needy. It costs money to go to work, get lunches, food, clothes etc.
I volunteer to work in the passport office.
I think it is a great way to add to you stagnant CV, also by giving time of your time to worthy causes can only help our fellow countrymen (Biblical sense).
Poor Orlaith – give her a break dudes – things are bad and things are good, dont really think there is a right or a wrong answer here, if ya want to do the internship do it, if you dont well then dont !!
What is a “proper wage”? Surely those who applied for it feel the wage they receive in return is adequate or otherwise they wouldn’t do it. Who is anybody to decide how much somebody else should work for?
Cillian, obviously the Government have decided how much somebody else should work for. So regardless of skills, qualifications and knowledge, unemployed people are expected to work for nothing. In the mean time the companies get someone to work for nothing.
Voluntary organisations, should be allowed to advertise for interns and offer €50 pw that way society as a whole benefits, not private individuals.
Cillian, I applied for a job bridge scheme, not for the wage, because it is shit ‘wages’. so that i have something to do, to get work experience. Last year i did a Fas WPP for no extra money.
have your say