Internship scheme offers 5,000 work placements to people on the dole

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 04:09PM

Ya i dont understand how somebody can not get it,the question i would ask yore and lostboy is: have you at least tried one of these schemes and see for yourselves how they operate?

micropig · 13-05-2012 04:15PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

My preferred solution would be to scrap the scheme,as it blocks what could be a paid job advertised by lets say: supermacs,and tesco,lets remember the fact that these are huge profit guzzling multinationals,that dont need to be subsidised by our government(and how stupid is that,our government are handing out free workers instead of putting pressure on them to hire)..and as rightly pointed out by sunflower:

Supermacs are a huge profit guzzling multinational:D

They have about 4 stores in NI, the rest in the republic. Is that what passes for a huge profit guzzling multinational these days?

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 04:34PM

ok fair enough,but,supermacs do make good money..and tescos is (an even bigger) huge profit making machine,hewlitt packard etc..these are large organisations that should be hiring paid staff,they can well afford..
I think the problem with the scheme is they havent streamlined who should be on it,it shouldnt be subsidising large firms or multinationals,it should be subsidising those who need subsidising,they should ask them to open the books before accepting them as a host company,i think the whole set up is just plain wrong.it costs money and gives nothing back to the community,it robs jobs..

yore · 13-05-2012 05:19PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

Ya i dont understand how somebody can not get it,the question i would ask yore and lostboy is: have you at least tried one of these schemes and see for yourselves how they operate?

Nope, I haven't tried it. I only go on what I read about it and hear apocryphally. You have had a bad experience on a CE scheme. I'm not saying that is false. Other's have posted positive things about jobsbridge.

There have been a lot of posts in this thread, but I can't remember one that was 100% negative from someone who completed an internship. Sunflowergirl was negative, but did also point out the positives, particularly the valuable reference she expects to get.

I never said it was immune to abuse. I've made that point already. I stated many times, from the outset, that it was open to abuse. Just as any scheme is. However if you know of any, just report it. Reporting it doesn't mean reporting that you don't get on personally with a supervisor because that is a "his-word-against-mine" scenario. There's f^4k all someone can do in an isolated case for that. But if a company lets a person go, and takes on an intern to replace them, that is something that is easily proven!

Sierra Oscar · 13-05-2012 05:20PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

ok fair enough,but,supermacs do make good money..and tescos is (an even bigger) huge profit making machine,hewlitt packard etc..these are large organisations that should be hiring paid staff,they can well afford..

I think you have hit the nail on the head there.

This scheme was originally envisaged to aid employers who are simply not in a stable financial position to take on extra staff to still take people on board. The likes of Tesco can well afford to pay people full wages, but they are clearly taking advantage of the scheme.

yore · 13-05-2012 05:22PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

ok fair enough,but,supermacs do make good money..and tescos is (an even bigger) huge profit making machine,hewlitt packard etc..these are large organisations that should be hiring paid staff,they can well afford..
I think the problem with the scheme is they havent streamlined who should be on it,it shouldnt be subsidising large firms or multinationals,it should be subsidising those who need subsidising,they should ask them to open the books before accepting them as a host company,i think the whole set up is just plain wrong.it costs money and gives nothing back to the community,it robs jobs..

Again, and we seem to be going around in circle, but if I were organising the jobsbridge scheme, I would be begging multinationals to take part. Jonbsbridge has nothing to do with the community . That is the CE schemes. CE stands for Community Employment so the clue is in the name!!

yore · 13-05-2012 05:24PM

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

I think you have hit the nail on the head there.

This scheme was originally envisaged to aid employers who are simply not in a stable financial position to take on extra staff to still take people on board. The likes of Tesco can well afford to pay people full wages, but they are clearly taking advantage of the scheme.

Nope. My understanding was that it was to get work experience for well qualified recent graduates

yore · 13-05-2012 05:27PM

yore wrote: »

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

I think you have hit the nail on the head there.

This scheme was originally envisaged to aid employers who are simply not in a stable financial position to take on extra staff to still take people on board. The likes of Tesco can well afford to pay people full wages, but they are clearly taking advantage of the scheme.

Nope. My understanding was that it was to get work experience for well qualified recent graduates

http://www.jobbridge.ie/

Welcome,

JobBridge is a new National Internship Scheme that will provide work experience placements for interns for a 6 or 9 month period.

The aim of the National Internship Scheme is to assist in breaking the cycle where jobseekers are unable to get a job without experience, either as new entrants to the labour market after education or training or as unemployed workers wishing to learn new skills. The scheme will also give people a real opportunity to gain valuable experience to bridge the gap between study and the beginning of their working lives.

I don't see any mention of struggling employers there. Don't criticise something for not being what it was never intended to be.

Sierra Oscar · 13-05-2012 05:35PM

yore wrote: »

Nope. My understanding was that it was to get work experience for well qualified recent graduates

Not necessarily, the department indicated the necessity of such a program in order to help businesses who had the capacity to increase its workforce, but lacked the economic means of doing so. It was also outlined that such a program would mutually benefit both the employers and 'employee' through allowing employers increase their workforce whilst allowing 'employees' gain experience.

yore · 13-05-2012 05:36PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

ok fair enough,but,supermacs do make good money..and tescos is (an even bigger) huge profit making machine,hewlitt packard etc..these are large organisations that should be hiring paid staff,they can well afford..
I think the problem with the scheme is they havent streamlined who should be on it,it shouldnt be subsidising large firms or multinationals,it should be subsidising those who need subsidising,they should ask them to open the books before accepting them as a host company,i think the whole set up is just plain wrong.it costs money and gives nothing back to the community,it robs jobs..

Ok. it's going off topic a bit, but aren't a lot of supermacs franchisee owned?

Sierra Oscar · 13-05-2012 05:39PM

yore wrote: »

Ok. it's going off topic a bit, but aren't a lot of supermacs franchisee owned?

Most are owned by individuals who operate multiple restaurants.

What is your defence of the scheme in regards the inclusion of very highly profitable multinationals such as Tesco within the scheme itself? Do you accept that the scheme itself is prohibiting the emergence of full time proper jobs in certain instances?

yore · 13-05-2012 05:41PM

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Not necessarily, the department indicated the necessity of such a program in order to help businesses who had the capacity to increase its workforce, but lacked the economic means of doing so. It was also outlined that such a program would mutually benefit both the employers and 'employee' through allowing employers increase their workforce whilst allowing 'employees' gain experience.

I'm open to being corrected. So please feel free to direct me to any official jobsbridge material that states this as a condition/motivation??? It may have been pointed out as a possible use/advantage of the scheme to employers, but I don't see it anywhere as a pre-requisite

yore · 13-05-2012 05:45PM

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Most are owned by individuals who operate multiple restaurants.

What is your defence of the scheme in regards the inclusion of very highly profitable multinationals such as Tesco within the scheme itself? Do you accept that the scheme itself is prohibiting the emergence of full time proper jobs in certain instances?

what do you think would look better on your CV? 6 months experience with a large multinational, say in IT for HP, or 6 months being an IT assistant for your local factory? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the second option. the first one will look better though at the initial filtering stage for any job application. That's common sense

Yes it may temporarily prohibit the emergence of full time positions, but no serious management, for a serious job in a serious company will allow the serious operational risk of having large staff turnover in important positions. Particularly in a large multinational. The local factory might, but the large multinational less so. Because they would be more aware of these issues.

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 06:01PM

ok i was in a situation where my supervisor was making unreasonable demands on me,to go outside my job spec,i put that to the person who was running the scheme in clare,it basically went nowhere,and i was lucky to get out without being fired from the scheme,i then later adjoined another scheme which wasnt the best either,(there were lots of things going on there),in my last year of the scheme(the third year)i thought i would try somewhere else,and suggested it to the lady running the scheme(not the supervisor she was of no use or help)...and the same thing!if you had tried one of these schemes,i dont think you would find it an altogether positive experience either.abuse is rife!

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 06:05PM

''But if a company lets a person go, and takes on an intern to replace them, that is something that is easily proven!''

not if you live miles out from your work,and dont return there you wont know any better,and what are you going to do go up and ask each new face,are you an intern?are you an intern?

at the end of the day you took part in a free labour scam,your going to turn around and then complain about it,nobodys(especially there they run you around in circles) going to take that seriously..

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 06:08PM

''if I were organising the jobsbridge scheme, I would be begging multinationals to take part...''

assisting in the increase of unemployment via job blocking is something that wouldnt put a dent on your conscience it seems..as a person running the scheme its win win,for the free labour worker its lose lose..in some cases youre lucky to get a reference with the sh1t that carries on with them on these free labour schemes,some of them let what little title they have get to their head..

yore · 13-05-2012 06:10PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

''But if a company lets a person go, and takes on an intern to replace them, that is something that is easily proven!''

not if you live miles out from your work,and dont return there you wont know any better,and what are you going to do go up and ask each new face,are you an intern?are you an intern?

at the end of the day you took part in a free labour scam,your going to turn around and then complain about it,nobodys(especially there they run you around in circles) going to take that seriously..

The internships are advertised through that website aren't they? The only way the employer, without collusion from the people in the dept running the scheme,
could get around it is to take on someone else under a different job description. I gave the example before of finishing one receptionist intern and then hiring another intern as a marketing assistant but then making them work as the recpetionist....The marketing grad isn't gonna be to happy about that...

yore · 13-05-2012 06:11PM

Christmas, would you prefer it if the government just gave grants to the employers and told them to take on x amount of people on full wage with it. No conditions attached other than they should be an increase in the number of employees?

yore · 13-05-2012 06:19PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

ok i was in a situation where my supervisor was making unreasonable demands on me,to go outside my job spec,i put that to the person who was running the scheme in clare,it basically went nowhere,and i was lucky to get out without being fired from the scheme,i then later adjoined another scheme which wasnt the best either,(there were lots of things going on there),in my last year of the scheme(the third year)i thought i would try somewhere else,and suggested it to the lady running the scheme(not the supervisor she was of no use or help)...and the same thing!if you had tried one of these schemes,i dont think you would find it an altogether positive experience either.abuse is rife!

That's fair enough. the cunt gets away with it this time. but if it happens over and over again, are the same complaints keep coming up against him, someone is going to smell a rat

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 06:40PM

im not one that finds fault with most things,but ya each scheme that i was on had the same story,it was rife..

as for the solution i think,companies should be put under pressure by government to hire x amount of employees,a certain percentage of them,in order to qualify for the scheme.those who are serious would not be deterred,however those just after the free labour might be.

yore · 13-05-2012 06:51PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

im not one that finds fault with most things,but ya each scheme that i was on had the same story,it was rife..

as for the solution i think,companies should be put under pressure by government to hire x amount of employees,a certain percentage of them,in order to qualify for the scheme.those who are serious would not be deterred,however those just after the free labour might be.

you would be excluding most companies. And implicitly allowing, and condoning, the scheme to be used as a source of cheap labour.

The scheme is not supposed to displace a full time job. If a company is expanding and needs to take on 5 new workers and you say "well you can take on 1 of those under the jobsbridge" then you are explicitly allowing the company to replace another worker with an intern.

The idea of the scheme is to get experience for the intern. The advantage for the employer is that they could test water that they might not have entered otherwise. Your proposal means they would have to explicitly be going there anyway! It's a subtle point maybe, but a valid one in my opinion.

The reason I asked about the government just giving the grant to the company and letting it spend it on new employees (without regard to experience etc) is that this happens already and I was wondering what you thought of it. I know that for start-ups, certain local authorities will provide premises and grants to get things off the ground. The company can use this grant to pay an indispensible worker's wages. Effectively,the government is paying full wages for that person.
I want to understand whether your problem is that the employer effectively gets the money, or that the worker doesn't get the full rate.
At a basic financial level, both scenarios are the same to the employer. in both cases the wages are funded by the government. However in the internship programme, the employer is limited to who he can take on and how long he can keep them after training them etc.

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 06:56PM

''you would be excluding most companies. And implicitly allowing, and condoning, the scheme to be used as a source of cheap labour.''

The scheme is not supposed to displace a full time job. If a company is expanding and needs to take on 5 new workers and you say "well you can take on 1 of those under the jobsbridge" then you are explicitly allowing the company to replace another worker with an intern''

....You are misunderstanding me,im saying lets just say,FAS/JOBBRIDGE had 10 ce/intern workers,out of those ten ce workers,they(the company) have hired that they take on half of them and pay them.

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 07:02PM

yore wrote: »

The scheme is not supposed to displace a full time job.

Thats exactly what they do what do you think people have been talking about through these 100 + plus posts?

Again,i will say,it occupies what could be a paid job,for example a big multinational like tescos,decides they need some christmas staff,instead of paying them in actual employment,they turn around and go to job bridge and hire free labour workers..effectively taking away what could have been paid positions,and more importantly tax back to our government in a recession.

yore · 13-05-2012 07:05PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

''you would be excluding most companies. And implicitly allowing, and condoning, the scheme to be used as a source of cheap labour.''

The scheme is not supposed to displace a full time job. If a company is expanding and needs to take on 5 new workers and you say "well you can take on 1 of those under the jobsbridge" then you are explicitly allowing the company to replace another worker with an intern''

....You are misunderstanding me,im saying lets just say,FAS had 10 ce workers,out of those ten ce workers,they have hired that they take on half of them and pay them.

We're going back to CE/jobsbridge confusion territory.

You could insist, for jobsbridge, something along the lines of you must have increased your fully paid employees by at least half the number of your previous finished completed candidates in order to continue in the scheme.

That might make some people happier, but would rule out genuine employers who would give good experience to interns without being able to provide a full time job at the end of it.

If you are an honest and genuine employer, you might find tasks to do for an intern but might not have a full time job for them.

The organisation that I work for takes on interns. I am abroad. An Irish fella came over a few Summers ago. I remember him getting random jobs like going around and taking photos of staff to make a presentation to someone who was leaving. It wasn't something that there'd be a full time job for. But it was a fantastic job and opportunity for him. You might think it sounds sh1te, but he got to go around the whole organisation and meet all the top people. VPs, managers etc.

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 07:09PM

No im certainly not confused about jobbridge or indeed fas i have plenty of experience doing free labour dogs body schemes..and i know what they are all about labour exploitation..

If the ce scheme and internship had something good to offer i would be all ears,but it doesnt its abused by a lot of different host companies..

If however,they had to take on 5 out of 10 ce / intern staff(or 3-4 out of ten) as a prerequirement to qualifying for the scheme,it would deter those who are only there to exploit for free labour..

yore · 13-05-2012 07:09PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

Thats exactly what they do what do you think people have been talking about through these 100 + plus posts?

Again,i will say,it occupies what could be a paid job,for example a big multinational like tescos,decides they need some christmas staff,instead of paying them in actual employment,they turn around and go to job bridge and hire free labour workers..effectively taking away what could have been paid positions,and more importantly tax back to our government in a recession.

I don't know how the scheme operates but I'd imagine there is some feedback mechanism to monitor this.

If sunflowergirl comes back, she might confirm this for us

yore · 13-05-2012 07:16PM

christmas2012 wrote: »

No im certainly not confused about jobbridge or indeed fas i have plenty of experience doing free labour dogs body schemes..and i know what they are all about labour exploitation..

If the ce scheme and internship had something good to offer i would be all ears,but it doesnt its abused by a lot of different host companies..

If however,they had to take on 5 out of 10 ce / intern staff(or 3-4 out of ten) as a prerequirement to qualifying for the scheme,it would deter those who are only there to exploit for free labour..

I think I understand your suggestion. You are saying that if they wanted to take on 10 interns to fill 10 positions, they can't. They have to take on 3-4 of those (from the same pool of intern people) as full staff, and then get the other 7 for free?

That doesn't really deter them if what you are saying is true (i.e that there are 10 jobs there anyway). It just means that they can get 7 for free instead of 10. In that case they are still going to do it...

bear in mind that there are probably restrictions on the number of interns you can have in a particular area too. And to have 10 interns, you are going to need to be a large company too.

christmas2012 · 13-05-2012 07:22PM

If they had to employ some,they might not see it as an advantage,as having the full 10,if they had to employ 5..still its better than getting the 10 free..

somebody has to think up something and change the way it works,talking from being a ce worker i know that to be true,all the schemes i was on (3 of them) were jobblockers..

14-05-2012 08:17AM

The scheme is bull**** it does not tackle one root cause of our unemployment problem.
I repeat we do not have high unemployment because we had no internship scheme.

christmas2012 · 14-05-2012 01:32PM

yeah we have high unemployment because of these schemes who the feck is going to hire paid staff with these joblockers in the way..

Internship scheme offers 5,000 work placements to people on the dole

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