Pathways to Work

JP Liz V1

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0223/jobs-business.html

The Government will launch its Pathways to Work initiative, which is aimed at tackling the unemployment crisis.
The plan aims to integrate benefit and training services for the unemployed to provide a more streamlined approach to assisting people back into the workforce.
The plan will also contain proposals to cut social welfare benefits where claimants fail to co-operate with reasonable offers of education, training or employment.
Last week the Government launched its Action Plan for jobs, which is aimed at creating 100,000 jobs by 2016.
Today's Pathways to Work scheme is intended to provide the skilled workers to fill those jobs. With over 400,000 people unemployed - 38% of them for over a year- the plan could not be more urgent.
The scheme integrates unemployment benefits with training, education and job placement, under the National Employment and Entitlement Service.
Workers signing on for unemployment will be individually assessed immediately to see what training or help they need to get them back into the workforce as soon as possible.
They will be expected to engage with feasible training or job interviews they are offered.
However, if they do not co-operate, they risk having their benefits reduced. This has already happened in 500 cases since last April. They also risk being cut off if they are found to be working in the shadow economy.
Benefits like rent supplement may also be restructured to avoid traps that discourage people from moving from welfare to work.

seamus

if they do not co-operate, they risk having their benefits reduced

There's that word "risk".

I'd be surprised if this Government has the balls to do what needs to be done when it boils down to it.
What will happen is that those who are genuinely looking for work will be hounded and threatened by the Dept of Social Welfare under this new scheme, while the wasters that this seeks to target will continue running rings around the government with their little scams.

antoobrien

I hope it's just the reporting but it looks like there's too many aspirations in that report rather than specifying actions that will be taken to reform the social welfare system.

they risk having

they risk being

Benefits like rent supplement may also be restructured to avoid traps that discourage people from moving from welfare to work.

A little bit of authority & clarity would be useful as to what will happen, otherwise we risk "promise fatigue"

libra02

seamus wrote: »

There's that word "risk".

I'd be surprised if this Government has the balls to do what needs to be done when it boils down to it.
What will happen is that those who are genuinely looking for work will be hounded and threatened by the Dept of Social Welfare under this new scheme, while the wasters that this seeks to target will continue running rings around the government with their little scams.

You hit the nail on the head there - as per usual the recently unemployed who are getting little to no extra benefits juts the basic €188 or whatever a week, who are genuinely seeking work will be the ones targetted and made to pay and be made targets to show the Gov " means business" while the lifers and the ones who know how the milk the sytem will get away scott free as per usual.

Fact is the Gov /local SW officers know the people they should be targetting but have no interest and are afraid to tackle these people. As everything is on computer these days it would be very very easy to see who has been claiming for 10+ years and to start there and not the poor people who have worked hard and lost their jobs over past 3 - 4 years.

FG and Labour may crow about it being FF fault but during the boom times I did not hear them saying they should tackle the unemployment figures during the boom - no they and FF and Labour were all for giving more money and now they people who are genuine job seekers are paying the price.
They all the same really.

campo

What I would love to see is when you sign up for the social or for that matter anyone that is currently on the social should have to provide a CV that goes on a database.

Then when a company is hiring they can look up this database to find possible workers

e.g you are a qualified mechanic but cant find work you sign on give in your CV the social up loads it next thing a garage in your area is looking for someone they look up this database see that you are qualified and hey presto you get an interview...

libra02

campo wrote: »

What I would love to see is when you sign up for the social or for that matter anyone that is currently on the social should have to provide a CV that goes on a database.

Then when a company is hiring they can look up this database to find possible workers

e.g you are a qualified mechanic but cant find work you sign on give in your CV the social up loads it next thing a garage in your area is looking for someone they look up this database see that you are qualified and hey presto you get an interview...

In theory that might sound good and work but in practice not sure if it would. The social just use it as an excuse to push people into unsuitable jobs etc. Also am sure the Gov would probably use it to extend the "internship" scheme which is already being exploited and abused.

Godge

libra02 wrote: »

FG and Labour may crow about it being FF fault but during the boom times I did not hear them saying they should tackle the unemployment figures during the boom - no they and FF and Labour were all for giving more money and now they people who are genuine job seekers are paying the price.
They all the same really.

Yawn, more ignorant comments about them all being the same. Take a look at one election manifesto - Labour's in 2007.


http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/thefairsociety_manifesto2007.pdf


Read a whole chapter on "Creating more and better jobs". The mantra that they were all the same is a notion peddled by SF/ULA supporters and bears little resemblance to the reality of the election manifestos. Look at another part of that 2007 manifesto where it is said:

"We will avoid pro-cyclical fiscal policies that increase
inflation and reduce long-run competitiveness. There
is a requirement to slow growth in day-to-day
spending down from the present unsustainable rate

towards the rate of growth in the economy."

If only FF has actually done this from 1997 onwards, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Bagenal

Just another method of trying to reduce the numbers on the live register and make themselves look good. If a person goes on a training course/internship then they are still unemployed. I would say that the vast majority of unemployed people would rather be working than being on social welfare payments. I'll bet they wont apply the criteria in this initiative to certain sectors of people that are claiming social welfare.
On a positive note it's fantastic to see PayPal bringing 1000 jobs to Dundalk.

Bannasidhe

Personally I think this is all more optics - the government issue statements about welfare fraud then shortly after announce their latest get tough policy.

What I want to know is details about these training schemes - are they going to be the same old out of date useless crap FÁS peddled or are they actually going to be worthwhile?

Finding suitable jobs that suit the person's skill set- a no brainer - but the fact remains we have a lot of announcements about money being put into job creation but we have seen little creation of jobs.

Bannasidhe

Burton is on Drivetime now - long on platitudes short on concrete details.

snubbleste

She should resign her job and get an intern to do it for e188 + e50 on jobbridge

Godge

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Personally I think this is all more optics - the government issue statements about welfare fraud then shortly after announce their latest get tough policy.

What I want to know is details about these training schemes - are they going to be the same old out of date useless crap FÁS peddled or are they actually going to be worthwhile?

Finding suitable jobs that suit the person's skill set- a no brainer - but the fact remains we have a lot of announcements about money being put into job creation but we have seen little creation of jobs.

We need to find a way to deal with the phenonemon of people who only want jobs to fit their particular skill set. If nuclear physicists have to retrain as waiters to get a job, so be it. It is a far more productive thing to do than have them sitting around on the dole.

A more practical example is that fact that there are probably more people graduating every year in journalism and communications than there are total jobs in those areas.

Bannasidhe

Godge wrote: »

We need to find a way to deal with the phenonemon of people who only want jobs to fit their particular skill set. If nuclear physicists have to retrain as waiters to get a job, so be it. It is a far more productive thing to do than have them sitting around on the dole.

A more practical example is that fact that there are probably more people graduating every year in journalism and communications than there are total jobs in those areas.

Yes, but there is no point sending a waiter to an interview as a nuclear physicist either. Or a mechanic to do childcare. Or a chef to do hairdressing.

It makes sense to look at a person's existing skill set and target the jobs that fit that skill set. Should there not exist any such jobs then retraining is the next obvious step. But there is a near mania about retraining at the exact same time as State training provision has been proven to be useless.

Having just heard what Burton had to say I am even more convinced this is all smoke and mirrors. If I understand it correctly should a claimant - and this is only aimed at new claimants btw - be called to an SW interview and fails to show up/get in contact attempts will be made to contact them again.
If they miss 4 such interviews their money may be cut by around 40 euro. If they fail to make contact and miss 4 appointments their SW may be cut? C'Mon!

I would be one of the lefties on here, and a defender of SW claimants when the 'spongers' brigade kicks off - but I really do think that is ridiculous - miss 4 meeting having not bothered to even phone up and explain/reschedule? There should be no 'may' about payments being cut in that case.

liammur

Pathways to Work. That title reminds me of the Gateways.

Who remembers them ?!

Happyzebra

What a waste of our very limited resources. There will always be people who don't want to work ... Why the money isn't being spent on trying to create jobs for those who do is beyond me... Clearly the government have despaired of resolving our unemployment crisis ... Headless chickens I think!

snubbleste

People have already had their benefits cut by €44 at some point last year because hey 'refused to engage'. The media mentioned that 520 had been cut-off altogether
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/jobless-to-be-stripped-of-benefits-if-they-dont-sign-up-to-work-initiatives-3029519.html

xflyer

Right let me get this right. The government is going to find you a job and if you turn it down they'll cut your benefits. Well that's fair enough if you believe the government is going to find jobs for near enough half a million people. Otherwise it's pure fantasy.

The worst of it, is that it gives the impression that everyone out there on the dole is dodging work. That's there's plenty of jobs out there. There aren't.

We need to find a way to deal with the phenonemon of people who only want jobs to fit their particular skill set. If nuclear physicists have to retrain as waiters to get a job, so be it. It is a far more productive thing to do than have them sitting around on the dole.

With all due respect that's BS of the highest order. Even during the height of the boom people with qualifications were quite prepared to do jobs way below their skill levels until an opportunity came up. I remember working on a production line with a two Physics graduates, a hairdresser, carpenters and all sort of other qualifications and trades.

The difference between then and now is that the in-betweener jobs no longer exist and those that do are reserved for people with experience or who fit the age range. So Nuclear Physicists won't even be considered as waiters, retrained or not. Nor bricklayers getting work as shop assistants. If you're overqualified or over a certain age, or a man in certain jobs, you won't get a look in.

That's the reality.

The irony of all this that they should bring in a stupid idea like this when there's no jobs. The very time it should have come in was when there were plenty of jobs.

It's all window dressing from a government out of it's depth.

K-9

xflyer wrote: »

Right let me get this right. The government is going to find you a job and if you turn it down they'll cut your benefits. Well that's fair enough if you believe the government is going to find jobs for near enough half a million people. Otherwise it's pure fantasy.

From watching the news the hope is to get 70/80,000 of the live register over the next couple of years, even that's a tough ask. The ould internships in Tesco could come in handy there!

Bannasidhe

K-9 wrote: »

From watching the news the hope is to get 70/80,000 of the live register over the next couple of years, even that's a tough ask. The ould internships in Tesco could come in handy there!

Speaking of Tesco and internships. Interesting to read Tesco UK's announcement re: SW recipients undertaking work experience with them:

Tesco will offer paid placements with a guarantee of a job to all those people it will be taking on for work experience through a government scheme, after claims that it was using benefit claimants as unpaid labour led to a consumer backlash and in-store protests.

Tesco said the 1,500 unemployed people on jobcentre work experience schemes referred to the company over the next six months would now be given a choice of staying on benefits and completing the placement unpaid, or accepting a four-week paid placement with a guaranteed offer of a job at the end if the trial goes well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/21/tesco-paid-jobs-work-experience?newsfeed=true

Contrast that with their attempt to get free staff Jobsbridge Interns here for 6 months.

Max Powers

Usual 'looks good' press release from an Irish govt. Pity it wont be implemented properly. Introducing a maximum amount of social welfare to be paid to one person could be introduced quickly and easily providing instant savings.

By 'implemented properly', the courses people will do will be the usual safepass, ECDL, BER Assesor stuff FAS have been peddling for years. They wont look into the right people and those milking the system wont be cut.

Sin City

Whats stopping jonny sponger from saying fine ill go for an interview , turn up in a tracksuit a bottle of.bulmers and.a cigerette.saying story bud.im here bout da job..no sound....

Sin City

Joan burton was on radio 1 saying there are jobs in cloud computing health care and. Science

Yet all the training and internships are for cosmetics or shelf stackers etc

Encrypted Pigeon

campo wrote: »

What I would love to see is when you sign up for the social or for that matter anyone that is currently on the social should have to provide a CV that goes on a database.

Then when a company is hiring they can look up this database to find possible workers

e.g you are a qualified mechanic but cant find work you sign on give in your CV the social up loads it next thing a garage in your area is looking for someone they look up this database see that you are qualified and hey presto you get an interview...

Wasn't FAS already doing that? for all the good it did :rolleyes:

Bannasidhe

Sin City wrote: »

Whats stopping jonny sponger from saying fine ill go for an interview , turn up in a tracksuit a bottle of.bulmers and.a cigerette.saying story bud.im here bout da job..no sound....

Firstly this isn't aimed at jonny sponger - who presumably has been on the dole for many, many years now- but at new claimants.

Secondly, the interviews in question are not actual job interviews but interviews to assess how job ready one is to identify possible training options and monitor whether one had been actively seeking employment - presumably by producing PFO letters. The fact that few employers now send out PFO letters being neither here nor there apparently.

So if Jonny S does turn up belching bulmers clad in Heaton's finest leisure wear the assumption could be made by the assessing officer that jonny has no interest in getting a job. The assessing officer can report that fact - whether anything happens after that I have no idea...

Sin City

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Sin City wrote: »

Whats stopping jonny sponger from saying fine ill go for an interview , turn up in a tracksuit a bottle of.bulmers and.a cigerette.saying story bud.im here bout da job..no sound....

Firstly this isn't aimed at jonny sponger - who presumably has been on the dole for many, many years now- but at new claimants.

Secondly, the interviews in question are not actual job interviews but interviews to assess how job ready one is to identify possible training options and monitor whether one had been actively seeking employment - presumably by producing PFO letters. The fact that few employers now send out PFO letters being neither here nor there apparently.

So if Jonny S does turn up belching bulmers clad in Heaton's finest leisure wear the assumption could be made by the assessing officer that jonny has no interest in getting a job. The assessing officer can report that fact - whether anything happens after that I have no idea...

so if johnny.s has his annual shower and rolls the socks.out from his pants he could pass the interview and not bother about getting a job?

Sean Bateman

libra02 wrote: »

The social just use it as an excuse to push people into unsuitable jobs etc

If someone's unemployed, there should be no such thing as an unsuitable job.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Yes, but there is no point sending a waiter to an interview as a nuclear physicist either. Or a mechanic to do childcare. Or a chef to do hairdressing

But a nuclear physicist shouldn't be allowed to claim unemployment benefit and turn down a position as a waiter.

Happyzebra wrote: »

What a waste of our very limited resources. There will always be people who don't want to work

Then these people should receive no benefits at all.

seamus

Sean Bateman wrote: »

If someone's unemployed, there should be no such thing as an unsuitable job.

But a nuclear physicist shouldn't be allowed to claim unemployment benefit and turn down a position as a waiter.

While I agree in principle that people have no right to wait for a suitable job to come up, it is a bit of a balancing act.

To take your nuclear physicist waiter example, if he's working as a waiter 5 days a week, then you're reducing the amount of time he can spend searching for a more suitable job. Big whoop, employed people have to set aside time to search for jobs too, right?
However, because he is now employed, he has been removed from the social welfare ring and is dependent on the income from waitering. This makes him unavailable to secure unpaid positions or educational opportunities which might help him get the job he wants. If he quits waitering, he can't claim the dole for 3 months. So he can't quit. And yet he can't work anywhere else on an intern basis either.
So unless he can find someone to support him between quitting and signing on, or he can find a fully paid entry-level position in his desired field, then he's effectively trapped in the waitering job. That's a problem because the watering job is a job which might the "right" job for someone else on the dole.

How you solve that? Well I don't know. Perhaps we need to reconsider the rules around "quitting" work, and allow someone to sign on immediately if they move to an approved unpaid position or relevan training course. This would give people the freedom to work in any area, but quit when they find a suitable position in their chosen field.

donkey balls

I have to laugh at this new scheme regarding training/up skilling since I got let go some time ago the first thing I did was sign on and on the same day I signed up with a number of agencies to get some temping work,At first I thought this would be a stop gap for no more than six months but here I am three years later still doing the temp work:(.
Since then I have on my own bat completed four courses relevent to my industry without funding from either fas or dsw in fact one particular course was a week long intensive course,Yet when I informed the dsw that I would not be availble for work as I was doing this particular course they said they would not pay me as I would not be available for work:mad: ffs I was up skilling to gain a qualification that not many people have and is applicable to my industry.
Anyway I passed the state exams with flying colours and just missed out on applying for a full time job without the help of the state:DI wonder will I be called for an interveiw and if so could I get some money towards paying off the money I owe for the courses.:P

bbam

I think the idea is great if it were being introduced by a government who had money to back it up and actual either training places or jobs for people... It's a system that needs to be introduced while we have near full employment and it could grow and develop..

Unfortunately there are other "make things look good" motives going on...

People will be interviewed and thrown onto all sorts of dodgy 10-15 week "training courses" to re-skill them.. Seriously there are no jobs out there that a plasterer could re-train to do in 10 weeks.. Jobs like the 1000 paypal or other high tech jobs need college graduates with 3-5 years training..

By being thrown onto these courses they will be off the live register and so the government claim success as the live register is falling...

Our local social welfare office is manned by a bunch of self righteous snobs who have no people skills nor interest in helping anyone... pity anyone who has to be interviewed by them !

There are no huge number of jobs out there... What will happen is that larger companies will be approached to take jobless people in for 3-6 months free work to give them "experience".. Free labour for them and again the live register is reduced... Everyone wins except joe soap!!

Why would it be targeted at those just out of work.. They are the real victims of the crash.. Why not focus on those who are 5 or more years signing on.. They are the professionally unemployed..

I've seen comments using the example of why couldn't anyone be a waiter... Simple.. it's a tough job that needs particular skills and personality.. While I could easily learn the skills my personality would not lend me to the position... No self respecting restaurant owner wants Joe Soap working the floor when he has been forced to do it "or else"... Can you imagine the customer service in a place like that..

Readyhed

We need to find a way to deal with the phenonemon of people who only want jobs to fit their particular skill set. If nuclear physicists have to retrain as waiters to get a job, so be it.
It is a far more productive thing to do than have them sitting around on the dole.

Yes, but there is no point sending a waiter to an interview as a nuclear physicist either. Or a mechanic to do childcare. Or a chef to do hairdressing..

These type of comments seem to be founded on the mistaken belief that there are jobs as nuclears physicists, waiters, hairdressers or child carers that cannot be filled by people
who already have the skills and experience to do them. In other words if everyone on the dole really tried REALLY hard and REALLY REALLY wanted a job then they would get one and
the unemployment problem would be solved. This kind of CRAP might sound good on X Factor but this is the real world and we are in a deep recession.
There are no easy,simple and immediate solutions to the problem.

There are 450,000 unemployed people at the moment. That either means:
A. We need to create 450,000 more new jobs that are not there.
B. Everyone on the dole is a chancer who doesn't want to work - therefore there are 450,000 job vacancies that cannot be filled.
C. A certain portion of people on the dole are chancers as in B. say 5% =22,500 people - There must therefore be 22,500 job vacancies that cannot be filled.

As far as I am aware no one is seriously claiming there is a shortage of applicants when a job is advertised.The problem has nothing to do with nuclear physicists being too proud
to be a waiter. There are plenty of unemployed waiters - just no jobs for them.

This witch hunting for dole scroungers is purely driven from a need to save money and represents an attempt to demonise those who are unemployed. The time to
do this was at the height of the boom when work was plentiful, it was hard to find candidates to fill jobs and anyone on the dole was in all likelihood not seriously seeking work.

The plan now is we should "encourage" people to try harder to find a job. They should be made aware they risk this or that if they don't "engage". They should seek training to "Upskill"
etc, etc., is total nonsense. Frankly I am sick of listening to this mindless rhetoric.
THERE ARE NO JOBS. Create the new jobs first. Then hassle the unemployed to take them.

Bagenal

Readyhed wrote: »

These type of comments seem to be founded on the mistaken belief that there are jobs as nuclears physicists, waiters, hairdressers or child carers that cannot be filled by people
who already have the skills and experience to do them. In other words if everyone on the dole really tried REALLY hard and REALLY REALLY wanted a job then they would get one and
the unemployment problem would be solved. This kind of CRAP might sound good on X Factor but this is the real world and we are in a deep recession.
There are no easy,simple and immediate solutions to the problem.

There are 450,000 unemployed people at the moment. That either means:
A. We need to create 450,000 more new jobs that are not there.
B. Everyone on the dole is a chancer who doesn't want to work - therefore there are 450,000 job vacancies that cannot be filled.
C. A certain portion of people on the dole are chancers as in B. say 5% =22,500 people - There must therefore be 22,500 job vacancies that cannot be filled.

As far as I am aware no one is seriously claiming there is a shortage of applicants when a job is advertised.The problem has nothing to do with nuclear physicists being too proud
to be a waiter. There are plenty of unemployed waiters - just no jobs for them.

This witch hunting for dole scroungers is purely driven from a need to save money and represents an attempt to demonise those who are unemployed. The time to
do this was at the height of the boom when work was plentiful, it was hard to find candidates to fill jobs and anyone on the dole was in all likelihood not seriously seeking work.

The plan now is we should "encourage" people to try harder to find a job. They should be made aware they risk this or that if they don't "engage". They should seek training to "Upskill"
etc, etc., is total nonsense. Frankly I am sick of listening to this mindless rhetoric.
THERE ARE NO JOBS. Create the new jobs first. Then hassle the unemployed to take them.

It's an awful pity the politicians couldn't get this in to their skulls, there are jobs in some sectors such as IT but not everyone is qualified or capable of being trained to take these jobs.

bbam

It's also very sickening how quickly those who still have jobs are turning on the unemployed as if all 450,000 of them had made a lifestyle choice to leave their jobs and make a better life for themselves on social welfare...

In the recent report by Joan Burton and her folks, for every €1 which they discovered in fraud they found that the staff were making €3 in errors..

bbam

bbam wrote: »

It's also very sickening how quickly those who still have jobs are turning on the unemployed as if all 450,000 of them had made a lifestyle choice to leave their jobs and make a better life for themselves on social welfare...

yeah nearly half a million people didnt suddenly all get struck down with laziness at the same time. Those who emigrate will be unwelcome back in Ireland in a few years time and any who come back with money will be hated. I don`t understand the mentality.

Sala

This is the risk attached to jobbridge. For every decent internship there appear to 10 or more rubbish ones. It was fine when people had the choice to ignore the rubbish one, but now will they find themselves forced to work as a housekeeper, shelf stacker and so on just to keep their welfare payments?

libra02

Deleted User wrote: »

yeah nearly half a million people didnt suddenly all get struck down with laziness at the same time. Those who emigrate will be unwelcome back in Ireland in a few years time and any who come back with money will be hated. I don`t understand the mentality.

Either do I but it is typical Irish mentality- it seem people in this country love nothing more then to kick a person when they are down and the the more decent and honest the people the more hate is dished on them.

A P45 on some of these people desk's would give them a sharp dose of reality- not that I would wish that on anyone- but very easy to be all idealisitic when you have an income coming in but when you don't they suddenly find all their so-called " idea and opnions" on surviving, finding work etc are great in theory and that is about it.

Dubit10

All i am seeing is a few I.T. and "smart economy" jobs being created and believe it or not this kind of work is'nt suitable for everyone.

Here's a crazy idea, how about creating some real world jobs for people to do before chucking them off the dole. When is the last time we seen a factory open up with manufacturing jobs for people. It's bloody depressing and an issue that needs to be addressed before treatening people with expulsion from the dole.