RTE broadcast two features on news programmes yesterday on Job Bridge. The first was an interview on Morning Ireland and the other was a report later in the day on RTE TV saying that the Government was now going to review eligibility criteria for the scheme.
The interview with the employer on Morning Ireland set the news agenda – he wanted to recruit someone for a position in a start up – but as the person he wanted to recruit was on a FAS course they could not take up an internship position. The interview was very interesting as it was all about why the company needed the intern and not what they could do for the intern. Breaking the UK market was even mentioned as being a crucial reason about why they wanted to take someone on. No question was asked about if this person was so perfect for the role why the employer didn’t hire him as an employee?
It is clear from the reviews of adverts and descriptions that I and others have been doing for the past few months that many companies seeking interns are far more interested in what an intern can do for them as a form of labour substitution and not about what they will be doing for the interns job prospects and training. Remember this company that is so anxious to recruit does not have to pay one cent to the intern for 9 months. No money is available or expenditure required for training or upskilling of the interns or job search preparation service available.
Last night it was reported that the Government is going to review the conditions to make it easier for people to take up positions. The report did not mention reviewing the many adverts which clearly don’t meet the criteria or have been withdrawn or rewritten after being pointed out as farcical.
In order to balance the situation employers should be paying some of the interns costs, mentoring and supervision should be monitored by a independent human trained in employment support and not by a self reporting form from the company and intern. The unions should remember where their brains are and closely examine where internships are being used as employment substitution. The National Internship Scheme should provide a whistleblowing service giving support and protection to interns who disclose abuses of the system.
Internships that involve unskilled roles in hotel and catering, retail sales, cleaning, packing boxes, warehouse duties, the care of vulnerable people etc. should be excluded from this programme. Companies that don’t specialise in an area should not be recruiting staff to work oh for example on their website if they can’t teach someone about the business of web design because they are a furniture removal company.
I completely understand that people are desperate for employment and for experience and that well run internships are very good ways of gaining experience and skills and making contacts. But the companies that are recruiting and their reasons for participating need to be about employment support for the interns and not about supporting startups, multinationals and sole traders to make money.
I now would be very reluctant to use the services of a company that uses people on JobBridge to provide services and make profits for their company. I’m not comfortable supporting companies that do 9 month job interviews. A company that supports people to develop skills should be paying something towards the person’s wages even in a trainee role.
From the debates I am observing online many others are thinking the same. I am particularly interested in observations of those who work in industry and are experts at their crafts and don’t usually do politics but know a lot about business. This post on the work of an instructional designer (sounds a fascinating career area by the way) and the potential for exploitation points to other areas of concern in how this scheme is designed to make profits from those not being paid for their labour.
Maybe politicians and journalists can now begin ask the real questions about Job Bridge and the purpose of internships and not some puff piece for a company who wants free staff to break the UK market.
Hire an intern to help you with your site! I bet a lot of junior journos would love the experience and exposure.
I think there’s very few instances where people are better off at home unemployed, even if they’re doing web design for a furniture company. Surely your ammo is better directed elsewhere.
I didn’t say people were better off home unemployed – I am questioning if this is a employers support scheme for free labour or a programme to support the unemployed to develop or maintain their skills and experience? It’s supposed to be the latter.
and by the way i regularly publish guest posts and promote the work of other writers – emails to tips@mamanpoulet.com
I read about this whole #jobbridge fiasco as it exploded as a ragebomb on twitter. Everyone commenting thought of it as exploitation, as a case of big business sticking it to the little guy, and something that must be destroyed.
I’m not so sure. I personally volunteer with the Civil Defence. In the Civil Defence, we are not paid, as we all are volunteers. In exchange for that, we are given training, our food, and transport to/from the duties we attend.
Now as part of the Civil Defence there is a group called the Auxiliary Fire Service, who are all unpaid volunteers. The idea of the AFS is to help provide service when the regular/retained Fire Service is swamped (e.g. a major incident, like if an Enterprise train had slammed into the Malahide estuary when the viaduct collapsed.) Now, clearly the AFS is in a similar position where it can do a similar job to a paid person but for no pay.
The difference?
A: The AFS will not be called upon *unless* the regulars *cannot* deal with the workload
B: It is a *lot easier* for an AFS member to walk away from a job they don’t want to do. Say the AFS unit are providing fire cover for an event (used to do Oxegen once upon a time) yet the AFS member has a wedding that weekend. “Sorry cheif, I can’t volunteer for that one.” What can the chief do? Dock his wages?
I didn’t hear what that gombeen on Morning Ireland said to rile so many people, but I wouldn’t give JobBridge such a hard time either.
It’s exploitation if you allow yourself to be exploited. If you think you’re doing the work of someone who once got paid for the job, walk. If they give out to you for or breaching some rule of theirs, walk. They can not force you to do anything. What are they going to do, dock your wages?
But the important thing is notify. Anyone. Everyone. If they were trying to use you as cheap labour, the first day they try and order you, you walk, you tell. Tell JobBridge, Tell the media, (maybe a website could be set up as a blacklist based on intern’s reports?)
Also I see an opening where a start-up company could be helped by a graduate seeking work experience. (I’m on about a situation where it’s just the founders, each working long into the evenings to get their businesses off the ground, asking for some help on a voluntary basis.)
Start-up companies helping start-up careers.
@CJayFla it’s great that you volunteer for the Civil Defence but that’s volunteering, not a full-time job to pay the bills.
Also, there’s a big difference between startups and a hotel looking for waiting staff. http://intern.jobbridge.ie/Default.aspx?q=B+fomdowzS8kaDnSlUDk1zaMUPiFEeNrNWjviinu490thmC2C0u+DDniNHtdjeTe1klac0R6sxz4WoC2xresBFcctzSeawEV4+i0FVwlmUjLi/lTmsv+olFTSa+5mbl+2T1kogTgSa9G31gWVAEd2TGSNoSWbBrUoroM6tRiyvBdXeBh91GKCopXbFwqQwhjNEucp7wQ1urcgYe5h/lOFb6qgDpVitUilGdFUDc+5XsDfnghjxTBRD34Fxst2g2ONtmxLjPnhM4FmrzdKPbgNJ95yqBIkZNOrDJT6gbaDj8aDiTjFYsXOzjU9anynb53HY/LmEuTVKgic8oDZ26J39lI/S2D2sod/pk28ULZiN5hwC+S9bUMQNZTytPgQPDw3Syu9qsAtduf5XMWULb5mYlcZ0mR72bob9fsXSLLIzG+pgaB4JuFejw+LI1WB++ToNxIxs6oyojiAMQieh3ejccc38atWCj59l9g9+Jg+3c= – why should I be subsidising the Landsdowne Hotel so they get someone to work for free? Why isn’t this a paid position? How is this fair to: me, for subsidising it; unemployed people with relevant experience who deserve to be paid to do their job; and other hotels, who are paying their staff rather than getting a freebie from FAS?
It’s a perfect example of government (FAS in particular) screwing up something that can have a positive role – by allowing in ads for “waiting staff” they have discredited the entire idea of internships.
Yet, there are also ads looking for people with marketing degrees but no experience to work in real marketing organisations, learning real and employable skills. Or folks who can go learn SAP, a notch on a CV I’ve used myself to decide on a final candidate to hire.
I think this has more to do with government failings than the concept of quality internships being a good idea. Whomever is running JobBridge is either brain dead to the obvious attempts to get free manual labour, or government is desperate to get as many people off the books as they can.
An internship is were an employer adds value to an intern, gives them training and education.
A lot of jobs in Job Bridge seem to be the other way around were an intern is adding value to a company which makes money off that interns work.
If they’re not getting paid for making money for the company that moves into the area of the intern being an indentured servant.
@Dave – what you’re describing sounds more like an apprenticeship, where you have a trainee and a mentor.
@Stewart Curry I’ve always thought of an internship similar to what the wikipedia article says about it:
“Internship is a system of on-the-job training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. ”
Does Job Bridge say it’s something different?
Stephen,
My final two paragraphs dealt with that. If you think you’re replacing a paid job, walk. Should they be advertised as internships? of course not! But I am not one to condemn each and every jobsbridge posting as an attempt by big business to stick it to the little man!
@Dave – what it says and the jobs that are being posted are two different things I’m afraid.
Great article Suzy. I am heartened to see a debate opening up on the options available to unemployed people. (Apologies about the length of this comment, but it is a subject I research, and am therefore very interested in)
@Sheesh, I think you have, perhaps inadvertently, nailed what I see as a primary problem with that debate: ‘sure anything is better than sitting at home on the dole’. The problem is, that’s not true (it also assumes that this is what unemployed people do, which in my experience, doesn’t reflect reality).
A recent, and little commented upon, ESRI evaluation (http://www.esri.ie/publications/latest_publications/view/index.xml?id=3144) of the FÁS process for engaging with unemployed people to help them get back to work found that participants were 17% less likely to get a job than non-participants. And this was during the job-rich Celtic Tiger days! A clear illustration that anything is not better – some interventions can damage your chances of getting a job.
This is an agency that consumed approx. €1 billion of state resources. The lack of media attention to this rather stunning finding is illustrative of Ireland’s institutional stance towards unemployment. No EU country (and indeed OECD member) has seen such a dramatic increase in unemployment as Ireland. Many countries reacted faster, using interventions with a better track record, to rising unemployment than we have. The academic and policy literature on interventions for unemployed people provides clear pointers to ‘what works’. Ireland has consistently failed to integrate this learning into its provision. We seem to feel content that anything will do. But it doesn’t. Where we spend money on ineffective interventions we waste both public resources, and human potential.
For example, one of the phenomena associated with such interventions is ‘locking in’: while on a programme – e.g. training, an employment programme, an internship etc. – participants are considerably less likely to secure work in the open labour market, as their energies go into the programme rather than job search, and there is a natural inclination to finish out that programme so as to reap any employment benefits. Internships are a particularly good example of this: you’re hoping you’re going to get a real job at the end, if you leave beforehand, you may sacrifice this opportunity, and risk being seen by other employers as a ‘quitter’. (It’s also why, as CJayFla notes, it is critical that interns can e.g. go to job interviews, training etc. during their internships. But it’s something of a dilemma for interns: if I say I can’t come in this afternoon because I’ve got a job interview, do I remind the company I’m interning with that I may have other options, or do I appear ‘uncommitted’?) Interventions for the unemployed must therefore make sure that the benefits of participation outweigh the lock-in effect e.g. qualifications obtained significantly increase employability. As Suzy notes, the lack of training or formal certification in the JobBridge programme means the risk that lock-in outweighs qualification effect is extremely high.
There are good reasons to believe that we won’t ever be in a position to evaluate this properly. In 2010 Forfás published an evaluation of FÁS services (http://www.forfas.ie/publication/search.jsp?ft=/publications/2010/title,5748,en.php). One of the major problems it came up against was that FÁS didn’t keep sufficient data to conduct a reasonably robust evaluation of the efficacy of its services (the ESRI evaluation encountered the same problem – it had to bring together three different data sources for its evaluation). Anyone like to take bets that a year from now there will be no data available on the number of JobBridge interns who were actually given real jobs with the companies they worked for (or indeed any organisation) once the internship ended?
I find it fascinating that the views of one employer can, apparently, prompt a scheme review by the Department, but the comments of potential participants, freely available on the internet (but not picked up by national media), appear to provoke no such response. And the nature of that review is also interesting – as noted, it only seems to be addressing the employer side, and not the concerns of unemployed people.
Deadweight and displacement are widely acknowledged problems with labour market interventions. The displacement risk is extremely high with JobBridge, we really don’t know how many of these positions employers would have been willing to pay wages for in the absence of JobBridge (nor does it appear likely that we will ever know). Take yesterday’s example, the intern role appeared fairly central to the company’s expansion prospects. Would this company really put their expansion plans on hold without JobBridge? Seems somewhat unlikely. If it were really the case that the company can’t afford to hire him until they expand (and he’s clearly willing to work for very little, despite his apparent skills) a targeted, conditional, and monitored wage subsidy would be a more appropriate mechanism.
Deadweight (in brief, funding something that would have happened anyway, without funding) is a bit more tricky. A big part of this is figuring out who should benefit from labour market programmes. A certain duration in receipt of a social welfare payment is the default option in Ireland, with the aim of ensuring that those who need the intervention most get it. The ESRI (again!) have done work for the Dept. of Social Protection on ‘profiling’ unemployed people, to give an estimate of how likely it is that a person will secure work in the future. This might be a better way of going about things than just duration on a payment. On the other hand, if the duration criterion is just dropped (which appears to be part of the thinking re the JobBridge review), you get ‘creaming’ – those who are easiest to help get the most help, and those facing the greatest barriers get left even further behind (this is a well acknowledged problem with contracting out employment services to the private sector, for example). There are many unemployed people who do not qualify for a social welfare payment. I do believe they should be able to avail of support to get back to work. But great care is needed in deciding who gets access to what.
@CJayFla, you note: “It’s exploitation if you allow yourself to be exploited … They can not force you to do anything. What are they going to do, dock your wages?” Here’s another problem – your ‘wages’ can be docked. Any person on a Jobseeker payment is required to be genuinely and actively seeking work, and where they aren’t, the payment can be stopped. If you think you’re being exploited, but the Dept. of Social Protection doesn’t, you can lose your entire income (this, by the way, goes for any such intervention, if you think it’s crap, but the Dept. doesn’t, you can be judged not genuinely/actively seeking work; and the Dept. may be institutionally disposed to assuming a lack of exploitation, and reluctant to accept another person back on the Live Register). This is why a whistle-blowers facility as outlined by Suzy is so important, without it, the power relationship is extremely unbalanced. And it is after all, in the Department’s interest to ensure that interns aren’t just returning to unemployment after 9 months (it’s nearly €2,000 per intern down the swanny for one thing). If the Dept. isn’t willing to put something in place in this regard, a website as suggested by CJayFla might be a good start.
The really depressing thing is that we do have programmes that are good at getting people back into jobs, but it seems in the rush to be seen to be doing something, anything, knowledge about what works is ignored. For example, the Forfás Review found that the Traineeship programme had the highest success rate of all labour market programmes, with 72% securing employment. The Review (p.152) notes the characteristics contributing to this success:
“Traineeships are occupational specific and industry endorsed training programmes which combine Training Centre and on-the-job components leading to FETAC major awards mostly at levels 5 and 6 and/or industry recognised certification providing access to specific occupations in designated sectors”.
“Each programme is delivered to a Training Specification and Training Plan.” Workplace training provides planned and structured training, carried out under the normal operational conditions of the host company. “A feature of the Traineeship is that the Employer nominates an experienced member of staff to act as a Skills Coach”, who provides both training in the workplace and supports participants to build on the skills and knowledge acquired in the Training Centre. The Skills Coach “also supervises the agreed Workplace Training Plan”, completion of which “is an integral component of the FETAC award”. FÁS provides training, free of charge, for Skills Coaches.
“These programmes are developed in response to identified skill needs and are constantly reviewed to maintain their relevance to the changing labour market”. The dual system gives participants an opportunity to apply their newly acquired – occupation specific and industry endorsed – skills in the workplace. Courses last from 20 to 43 weeks, and lead to recognised certification.
These attributes – labour market relevant, certified and industry recognised training, applied on the job experience, trained Skills Coaches in the company, monitored outcomes – could have been build into JobBridge. Better still, the Traineeship programme could have been expanded. This would of course not have been as cheap as JobBridge. But never mind, anything will do.
Many of these internships that have caused such anger are really entry-level (or even above) jobs. This could be (and probably is) skewing the labour market – and perhaps will skew the market for businesses.
Take someone with a skill, who might want to get a contract position, because there are precious few full time roles around. In some cases, they won’t get paid to do the work, because Jobbridge has agreed that the role is an internship. It’s easy enough for a company to say “This isn’t a full time role” because #1 – their accounts prove that they couldn’t afford to take someone on and #2 – it may not be central to the business of the company (hence furniture company web design intern) (This is not an internship in *my* opinion, yet it is accepted by Jobbridge).
Take a company that is trying to pitch for work. How can they compete in price with another company who has someone working for them for free? My understanding is that there are limited places on Jobbridge, which means only so many companies can use free labour in this way. So it encourages a race to get your free labour while you can.
At today’s committee Michael Noonan pointed out a debt forgiveness scheme would likely be abused.
It’s good to know they are pre-empting such things.
I have just started in a job bridge internship program. It was wrongly called an internship since I’m the only one there that knows how to do what I do. On the other hand its exactly what I want to do and I like the company.
The major problem I’m having is with Social Welfare. To take up this internship I had to move from my home town to Limerick. I notified social welfare of this as I wouldn’t be able to sign on any more because I would be working. Also I wanted my claim moved to Limerick as it would be more financially beneficial for me.
So today I go to the social welfare office in Limerick where they tell me that my payments have been stopped because I wasn’t signing on!!
I was already told I didn’t have to! I still haven’t received the €50 extra which interns are supposed to get eventhough I am registered with all the relevant groups!
I really want this internship but how can they expect people to take them up when there are so many obstacles in the way?
Jaysus, sorry to hear about that inverse. Unfortunately that’s an example of the extremely poor management culture in much of the state apparatus – they’re not agile enough to process this simple request, nor capable of mapping out these kinds of consequences from the program and creating a solution to mitigate them.
Hope it gets resolved for you.
Job Bridge was supposed to cater for 5000 interns. It amazes me that they can’t get it right when there is so few actually on the scheme. I’m sure it will all work out Aaron, thanks. Its just frustrating that they can’t get simple things right.
Great piece Suzy! This scheme has dissolved into a farce that has become a scandal.
I think you hit the nail on the head, when you argue that companies have (a) no real vested interest in the intern, the firm neither has to pay the intern nor give her/him any meaningful training or payment, and (b) there is clear abuse of the scheme by folk who want slaves.
The comments about the labour market and people’s experiences/ frustrations really demonstrate that FAS/J/bridge isn’t fit for purpose and the screening process is a dismal failure. How can waiting tables be called an internship, etc.? Why are large firms/ colleges being allowed to hire interns for now’t? And what measures forbid companies which were already advertising for workers to ‘bid down’ and take on intern/slaves?
This programme needs to be reformulates pronto so that it is centred on the intern. Companies need to be made make a contribution over and above the dole+50 yoyos pw. It is a completely shameful, toxic concoction as it stands.
You can now learn how to glitter a vagina under JobBridge
http://intern.jobbridge.ie/Default.aspx?q=B+fomdowzS8kaDnSlUDk1yW26DjUJdnNZmJvk4EsxDKnmmsSN00TwUdRB6TFYKagocrh0ox2oMjgw6uZ8HtiYVvverSdCVnBnTBeH0Zsx0ns9IIo9JqSzxFKaKuB7pGr9un7UHoiOaATBnQ/UkUOzsXWyMt3W2GdiOkjDbCeDB4vtToJtpNVj5pdeyJin7bWZ3Ui5UTXH4559BszbS4frYD6vIohOB4bk2+dFRJfS1yCy60j7veiUgAtkPNhZXo5W78j19s8RWieWWs8qXi9uX5JFbGvOEySxYjZMK9X9BGApFuBiXT6NrNRkxpyiclTyuk6WOHu3RJbcOvg5f6YxQ3vVQyECeZ+HOJ5DQV6hT+xClah95SjtyASCL32iEVEmx6v/xgjNXVmtmbAIpryPNZwlyfNkArGNeH4XTQTeX2Ytt/7vQFjkiiViGnkp7sI4s9THdq8w6Y8s8emPQlCvdxe2//0sJPx
@Stewart hahaha – you won’t really, because “As this is a busy Salon you need to be able to think on your feet and work at a steady pace.” They’d hardly have time to get the glitter out before thrusting it into your hand, pointing at a customer and leaving you to teach yourself such dark arts.
Thanks Maman for writing this blogpost.. I see the first few posts miss the point completely..
Sheesh.. “there’s very few instances where people are better off at home unemployed..” Not in the case of Jobbridge, where many of the internships posted are looking for applicants with third-level qualifications as a starting point. Those third-level graduates are actually better off at home spending a working day looking for a paying job either here in Ireland or on other shores. Is that really all a degree is worth these days, €230 a week (less after the next budget..).
CJayFla.. “I personally volunteer with the Civil Defence..” Fair play. The civil defence however serves us all a function with positive social benefits. These internships, which it appears are very open to abuse, serve to benefit mostly private business entities and are not wholly focused on actually helping the intern.
Aaron.. “there are also ads looking for people with marketing degrees but no experience to work in real marketing organisations..” That’s always been a stickler with jobseeking, the chicken-and-egg ‘experience’ factor. In reality most newbies to any job are upskilled on the day-to-day minutiae of the working environment in 3-4 weeks not 6-9 months. As an employer I’m sure you acknowledge this.
Brendan Strong.. “It’s easy enough for a company to say “This isn’t a full time role” because #1 – their accounts prove that they couldn’t afford to take someone on” Hear, hear Brendan, a point I made with a mate earlier today. Anyone in business knows just how creative accountants can be when they have to, rejigging and dressing up balance sheets to whatever end is necessary. Some seem to think this is the pious, benevolent face of private enterprise stepping up to the mark for the good of the country. If it’s more profitable for the business to have an intern, why not get one?
@Camille — the Traineeship sounds good in theory, but in practice is the same as (possibly worse than) the internships. Instead of working in an unskilled job for €50 more than your dole for 9 months, you’re working in a highly skilled job for *just* your dole for 6 months, after 19 weeks of training.
I know this because my bf is on such a scheme at the moment. He’s lucky in that he’s very talented at what he does, and so gets to do the kind of work he’d be doing in the actual job… But that’s only because he’s already capable. His colleagues from the course are mostly doing busywork, and have only been taken on in placements because it’s free labour. Nobody has a trained skills supervisor or mentor in their placement, no training was given once the course part was over… It’s just free labour.
We have no idea if my bf will be offered a job with the company after the placement is over. If not, he’s worked 29 40-hour weeks for nothing except a qualification in an industry that’s in decline, where there are no jobs.
His course is also being cancelled in the transition to SOLAS.
My overall point is that FAS has been doing this for many years under the guise of Work Placement Programmes and Traineeships, with no €50 incentive either. The only difference now is that they’re inviting *everyone* to take advantage of the desperate unemployed.
@shellymc Thanks for your post, that is very interesting information.
Shelly, I’m doing a PhD at the moment, and this is one of the areas I’d really like to research. I’m not (even nearly!!) ready to do data collection yet, but people like your BF are exactly the kind of people I’d love to talk to, because research is very rarely conducted from the participant perspective. Formal evaluations rarely uncover the kind of information you’ve highlighted above, and the academic literature on these kind of interventions in Ireland is very limited. I’m hoping to make a small contribution to filling that gap.
I’d love to be able to get in touch when I get to that stage of the research!
I really hope your BF gets a decent job out of it after all the effort he’s put in – he’s capable and talented, and of all the programmes FAS ran, this did have the best record in people getting actual jobs (hard to believe I know, but this was their best offering), so hopefully his chances are good.
You are of course completely correct to say that advantage is being taken of the desperation of so many unemployed people. Unfortunately, I’m not at all confident this is likely to change any time soon.
@inverse, I hope that the social welfare cock-up has been sorted by now, and that you’re getting the kind of opportunities you were looking for in the internship. That kind of messing is extremely frustrating.
Can We Fix Jobbridge? « brendan strong // Sep 8, 2011 at 13:44
[...] being done by “interns” for free. Some interns have pointed out that they are the only person performing a specific function within the companies where they are [...]
Hi all,
I did a work placement slightly different to an intership.I wasn`t getting €50 for a start.All i did as move cardboard boxes around a small stor and was the MD`s jeep so he could change it.The other staff weren`t really interested in training me.It finished after 4 weeks I reported the company to Fas in Dundalk.
I applied to do an actual Internship in Kells the role involved tidying up the stores and sorting parts out for a large Multinational.It was made quiet clear to me that there will be no permanent or follow on role at the end of the 9 mnths.No training I wouldn`t even be allowed drive the fork lift,I do have a licence!.Didn`t get offered the position anyway.
I did and interview for landscape gardener in the county council also an internship.No training will be provided just work for tidy towns committee in meath.No follow on role and won`t be short listed for any jobs in the council.Basically a recycled CE scheme.Using a lawnmower or strimmer is not something i`d put on my CV.Is this the training you get.