voluntary work to gain experience

HungOver

well as many of you i am unemployed and have been for about 6 months now..
before i got laid off i had aqcuired an old mini that was to be rebuilt <--- thats about the only thing keeping me sane...

i have taken on a nice routine ie.
do some work around the house,
do some work on the mini..
help out family with bits and bobs..
teaching swimming to friends, family
and going to the gym 4-5 nights a week...

its all going well (in my head) but i can get fairly p!ssed off too at times...
having sent out many a cv's and couple of silly unsuccesfull interviews further i feel i really need to find some sort of real job or i will crack up..
so my plan was to ask a Garage if they would let me do 1-2 days work experience with them and/or see can i get working making fences or something that involves welding (qualified there too on mig/arc welding) just to improve my skills and gain experience to put onto my cv..

the above mentioned would be voluntary work but what are the rules and regulations regarding still receiving my social welfare to survive???????

leeroybrown

There's a strong distinction between 'voluntary work' and 'unpaid work experience'. What you're describing is unpaid work experience and as far as I know it would remove you from availability to work for the days involved. Even doing voluntary work (eg. volunteering for charities) through the official channels is tightly controlled.

justwantajob!

I presume you'd still be eligible for full social welfare as you wouldn't be earning. And you're offering unpaid work to improve your chances of getting a paid job so it's still a form of job seeking in my eyes...

leeroybrown

Unfortunately for the OP, that's not the case. It's not about the earnings. If what you do for free would normally be paid work for which PRSI would be due then it will almost certainly disqualify you from receipt of social welfare payments.

Even if what you want to do is genuine voluntary work (eg. manning a phone for Childline) you need to go through a specific approval process. A friend who was unemployed a number of years ago had to jump through numerous hoops to volunteer two afternoons a week at a youth project.

Mrs OBumble

leeroybrown wrote: »

Unfortunately for the OP, that's not the case. It's not about the earnings. If what you do for free would normally be paid work for which PRSI would be due then it will almost certainly disqualify you from receipt of social welfare payments.

But how would anyone know? For goodness sakes, even the housework that is done in my house could be considered "normally paid work for which PRSI would be due" if I chose to employ a housekeeper to do it!

There are some things to consider though:

If you're on JB/JA, you need to be available for work. This means that if a paid job comes up, you need to leave whatever other voluntary activities you're doing and take the job.

Secondly, some companies would not be keen on having you do any "real" work. They may be worried about the reaction from their employees (or the union). There may be insurance issues with having non-employees in risky situations. These are legitimate concerns.

If you work for a very low hourly rate (eg E0), you are driving down the wages that other workers can expect to get. If the company became dependent on your doing that, you might be proping them up when they should not really be in business.

leeroybrown wrote: »

Even if what you want to do is genuine voluntary work (eg. manning a phone for Childline) you need to go through a specific approval process. A friend who was unemployed a number of years ago had to jump through numerous hoops to volunteer two afternoons a week at a youth project.

This that applies no matter what your employment or welfare status is. The only relevant factor is that some charities wouldn't bother doing the vetting, training etc for an unemployed person who could disappear at a moment's notice if they got a job.

leeroybrown

JustMary wrote: »

But how would anyone know?

I pointing out what they're entitled to do and leaving anything else to the their own imagination. If some smart individual recently laid off by one of these employers who offers experience to the OP choses to make a complaint then they'll be accused of social welfare fraud.

JustMary wrote: »

For goodness sakes, even the housework that is done in my house could be considered "normally paid work for which PRSI would be due" if I chose to employ a housekeeper to do it!

Oh come on, that's a ridiculous example. Work in the home is almost always carried out by the occupants in Ireland.

JustMary wrote: »

This that applies no matter what your employment or welfare status is. The only relevant factor is that some charities wouldn't bother doing the vetting, training etc for an unemployed person who could disappear at a moment's notice if they got a job.

You completely missed my point. It was casual volunteering and the charity in question were only too happy to take the person on. They went through the relevant social welfare procedures to ensure that they weren't putting their payments at risk and it was relatively awkward.

Mrs OBumble

leeroybrown wrote: »

If some smart individual recently laid off by one of these employers who offers experience to the OP choses to make a complaint then they'll be accused of social welfare fraud.

There is nothing in the Welfare rules saying that a person of JB/JA is required to sit at home, or walk the streets, or whatever, each day. Any complaints would be easily resolved when it was clear that no money was changing hands, and that no employment agreement existed.

leeroybrown wrote: »

It was casual volunteering and the charity in question were only too happy to take the person on. They went through the relevant social welfare procedures to ensure that they weren't putting their payments at risk and it was relatively awkward.

Please name the procedures.

leeroybrown

JustMary wrote: »

There is nothing in the Welfare rules saying that a person of JB/JA is required to sit at home, or walk the streets, or whatever, each day. Any complaints would be easily resolved when it was clear that no money was changing hands, and that no employment agreement existed.

I didn't say that someone had to sit at home all day. What I am saying is that (unless they're deliberately turning a blind eye to it) agreeing to do paid unpaid work for the experience will remove the OP from availability to work on those days.

JustMary wrote: »

Please name the procedures.

I don't know the exact details. As far as I remember they had to go through a formal approval procedure involving their local community welfare office. Their main gripe with it was that they felt as if it was being made deliberately awkward to give up some voluntary time that had no effect on their ability to seek work and that they probably would have give if working anyway. As far as I remember they were also limited in the contribution they were allowed to make.

Tawny

leeroybrown wrote: »

agreeing to do paid unpaid work for the experience will remove the OP from availability to work on those days.

Surely if the OP got a paying job he would be unavailable for his voluntary work... not the other way round.

leeroybrown

Tawny wrote: »

Surely if the OP got a paying job he would be unavailable for his voluntary work... not the other way round.

That depends on whether you're using conventional logic or social welfare logic.

Tawny

leeroybrown wrote: »

That depends on whether you're using conventional logic or social welfare logic.

This is true. I wouldn't go as far to describe their modus operandi as logic though.

Mrs OBumble

leeroybrown wrote: »

I didn't say that someone had to sit at home all day. What I am saying is that (unless they're deliberately turning a blind eye to it) agreeing to do paid unpaid work for the experience will remove the OP from availability to work on those days.

Nonsense: the unpaid work "deal" would just need to include the fact that the person may become unavailable to complete the work-experience at short notice, if the event that they found paid work. Problem solved. But of course this is a reason why many companies wouldn't want to be part of such a deal: it's pretty hard to give good customer service if the work is being done by and inexperienced person who you cannot rely on.

leeroybrown

JustMary wrote: »

Nonsense: the unpaid work "deal" would just need to include the fact that the person may become unavailable to complete the work-experience at short notice, if the event that they found paid work. Problem solved.

We're clearly treading water in circles here. What you say makes perfect sense in the real world. What I'm saying is that 'technically' by doing unpaid work experience the OP will be removing themselves from availability to work. Clearly it's possible that the Dept. of Social Welfare may be willing to take a looser interpretation of it than this but the only definitive answer the OP will get is by asking them directly.

This is my last post on the subject.