There are no jobs in this town, and "jobsbridge" is a contributory factor.

abouttobebanned

old gregg wrote: »

Gratuitous self promotion aside (mindful that there are plenty of people posting on this forum who don't have that option under present rules), excellent post abouttobebanned.

I'd happily see companies who abuse the scheme named and blacklisted. I'd happily know the name of the restaurant you are referring to and avoid eating there.

It's a sad state that during the so called good times we were ruined by companies and individuals who were happy to ride rough-shod over fellow Irish people through greed. That includes every local business who coined through the good years and offered up laughable Christmas sales for locals or charged €5 for a beer or whatever. Now that we hit the bad times the same greed still pervades. In this case it's a restaurant who want to establish themselves at the expense of an eager young person looking to gain employment or a local business. And, it's at our expense as well. We pay for this scheme and we're being ripped off.

With regard to the self promotion part...I was going to take it out but the post has rem quoted a few times. Apologies it's not usually my style but at that particular moment I was such a bit annoyed about the whole situation. I'd be grateful to a mod if they could take it out.

ROCKMAN

war_child wrote: »

I am currently employed in one of the roles on that list , its everything thats described in the advert , and now its my position to work to the best of my ability and make myself indispensable to that company, i took it on because it gets me out of the house , im activly working, and after being out of work for almost 2 years its great to feel i am actually being productive.....i complained about this scheme upto a point but the alternative is sitting at home watching jeremy kyle ....No thank you very much ......

I really hope you make yourself indepensable and get a full time position but what will your views of this scheme be if like many others you are showed the door at the end and replaced by another intern..
Will you honestly feel it was worth it or will you feel used ?

Deise Hurler

Solair wrote: »

Like most things the Irish Government touches - it's all well intentioned and sounds great in theory but then they implement it without any competent regulation or enforcement of any type and wonder why it's abused.

Sure we have public sector places such as the abbey community college and waterford college of further education now taking advantage of jobBridge. Take the Abbey Community College looking for the intern to do the caretaker job. The whole thing stinks, just like the Irish Government.

war_child

CuriousG wrote: »

You are lucky that it is exactly as described - not everyone has had that experience.

I am lucky curious and i completly understand were people are coming from with certain positions being advertised under this scheme , im lucky its a small company and there were 2 interns taken on at the same time , both of us are getting on great ,with promises of full time positions based on our performance. I was like the rest i was VERY DUBIOUS about taking on one of these positions and had the same feeling that it was slave labour after 9months be dumped like a big old bag of smelly sh1ite , but thankfully its not that kind of company.

Sully

abouttobebanned wrote: »

With regard to the self promotion part...I was going to take it out but the post has rem quoted a few times. Apologies it's not usually my style but at that particular moment I was such a bit annoyed about the whole situation. I'd be grateful to a mod if they could take it out.

Mod Note
If you PM what you want removed, that would be great and ill sort it.

As for the complaints about self promotion; It was discussed with a non-regular/Waterford forum mod today. It was decided that because of the circumstances, to leave it be.

I think its fair that while ABTB does regularly discuss marketing/PR this is the first time he has ever (to my recollection) went as far as plugging himself. His plug in his post today was very small and clearly just an uncontrolled vent.

In general on Boards there is a practice of forum regulars being given a little bit more leeway then someone who just signs up to shill/spam/gain publicity. There are legal issues around that, aside from the obvious lack of revenue Boards (an expensive service) gets from free advertising. We know ABTB personally, we know who he claims to be and thus it renders the main issue redundant.

Sully

CuriousG wrote: »

You are lucky that it is exactly as described - not everyone has had that experience.

Its a mixed bag. There is a lot of positives and negatives. Its not a complete failure, but it needs stricter regulation and prevention of abuse.

ROCKMAN wrote: »

I really hope you make yourself indepensable and get a full time position but what will your views of this scheme be if like many others you are showed the door at the end and replaced by another intern..
Will you honestly feel it was worth it or will you feel used ?

Even if he was left go, JobBridge is all about giving someone experience and plugging a gap in a CV that allows them to then go and seek a permanent job either in that business or elsewhere. Its also probably helping the business, but I would prefer to see grants given for such and the whole enterprise for businesses being opened up a lot more than it currently is allowing businesses to seek funding.

Whats to say people don't want a job as a receptionist and just need experience, or likewise McDonalds? :P

CuriousG

Sully wrote: »

Its a mixed bag. There is a lot of positives and negatives. Its not a complete failure, but it needs stricter regulation and prevention of abuse.

I agree.

gman2k

Sully wrote: »

I think I said this already, but have you emailed any of your examples to the appropriate Government department? I'm not saying they will fix it there and then, but you have an issue that has been discussed on national radio and the Minister said people need to email examples of such abuse. If you do and its ignored, go to the media and highlight it.

I complained about a certain Hotel on the Cork Rd. looking for waiting staff on the intern scheme. I was in touch also with a Gov party TD, and a Labour party figure also.
I got a letter back from Joan Burton defending the scheme and that it was appropriate for people looking for waiting jobs to avail of the scheme to gain valuable experience.
This is the position if the Labour party now.... socialists my h@le.

Sully

gman2k wrote: »

I complained about a certain Hotel on the Cork Rd. looking for waiting staff on the intern scheme. I was in touch also with a Gov party TD, and a Labour party figure also.
I got a letter back from Joan Burton defending the scheme and that it was appropriate for people looking for waiting jobs to avail of the scheme to gain valuable experience.
This is the position if the Labour party now.... socialists my h@le.

She kinda has a point. It appears to be the way she wants the programme to go!

Black Suir

abouttobebanned wrote: »

I'm currently working for a company on a contractual basis so am obviously keeping an eye out for other positions for the future.

However, I'm getting sick of seeing the words "The intern will gain practical experience...bla bla bla"

Take a look at the "job" that I have attached, and tell me it isn't disgraceful.

I know there is a large thread on this elsewhere on boards, but i want to talk about how it's particularly effecting this region.

Unfortunately, with FG and Lab this is the way things aregoing to be. They do every single thing to try and hide how many people are outof work and will use plenty of spin about the jobs that are there. When theywere in power in the early to mid 1990’s C.E. schemes sprung up in almost everytown and village in Ireland. While they got some good work done, the schemeswere there only to try and hide the true figures of how many people were out ofwork. A single person on a C.E. scheme in the mid 90’s got their dole and £20to work 19 and a half hour a weeks or 39 hours a fortnight. They could not taxthe dole, but were able to tax a person once they went on one of the schemesmeaning that they had to work for little or nothing. If memory serves me rightfrom talking to people on the schemes, they had something like £75 a weekbefore tax. The same two parties are now trying to get people to go to collegeor on training schemes to try and get them off the live register, but as soonas a person’s course is finished they are back on the dole because the twoparties are doing sweet F***all to try and help create jobs for the people whenthey come out of these courses, and even if they are some jobs, there wont bemany and we will have potentially thousands of people all looking for a handfulof jobs.

Sully

Black Suir wrote: »

Unfortunately, with FG and Lab this is the way things aregoing to be. They do every single thing to try and hide how many people are outof work and will use plenty of spin about the jobs that are there. When theywere in power in the early to mid 1990’s C.E. schemes sprung up in almost everytown and village in Ireland. While they got some good work done, the schemeswere there only to try and hide the true figures of how many people were out ofwork. A single person on a C.E. scheme in the mid 90’s got their dole and £20to work 19 and a half hour a weeks or 39 hours a fortnight. They could not taxthe dole, but were able to tax a person once they went on one of the schemesmeaning that they had to work for little or nothing. If memory serves me rightfrom talking to people on the schemes, they had something like £75 a weekbefore tax. The same two parties are now trying to get people to go to collegeor on training schemes to try and get them off the live register, but as soonas a person’s course is finished they are back on the dole because the twoparties are doing sweet F***all to try and help create jobs for the people whenthey come out of these courses, and even if they are some jobs, there wont bemany and we will have potentially thousands of people all looking for a handfulof jobs.

They got us out of the mess the last time they were in power. They were elected, like now, to fix the problems left by Fianna Fail. So far, most commentators would say they are doing a good (not great) job. No other opposition party now can do a better job. Ill admit that FG/Lab are far from perfect, but in the current Dail with the exception of one or two Independents, they are. Things are improving. Just not quick enough and there are areas that they should be addressing that they wont.

Job Figures are up and down, and the government cant hide from those figures. Jobs are being created, more than ever before, but its not having the required impact.

I don't believe there are enough funds available to startup or existing small businesses, the typical businesses which employ people. The grants are all targeted at export led businesses, manufacturing. Not just with the main Enterprise Board but the County Enterprise Board also. I believe small businesses are big parts of the engine that runs our country.

AdMMM

Some of the job postings up on JobBridge are a complete joke. The advert from Bellissimo Restaurant is almost laughable. The whole idea of an internship is that you learn valuable skills on the job from people who are more experienced than you. This particular advert (and there are many others) is reversing the role and it's the employer who's looking for someone with skills that they are lacking themselves. This intern is then going to share their knowledge with the employer and then they're going to find themselves cut loose at the end of it and wished the best of luck with their future job search all the while Bellissimo have their social media strategy cooking nicely and a nice new website that they get for free as well as a tonne of stock design work that they just need to have slightly tweaked at a fraction of a cost for future promotions.

If Bellissimo want to acquire new skills, they should have to pay for them. Simple as. If they can't afford them then they should approach their credit provider showing that a professional social media strategy will drive X amount of business to the restaurant and an uplift of revenue of Y%. If the banks agree with them, they'll give them credit because they still do that for well thought out plans that have realistic goals.

This advert mentions that the interns actions will be supporting the ongoing employment of 12 people. I find it quite shocking that Bellissimo would place this much responsibility on the shoulders of someone who is pretty much working for free. You'd also have to question the kind of calibre of employee this "opportunity" would attract. The most talented people won't work for free - sorry, €50 - and those that will work probably won't be able to maximise the success of whatever they implement. That maybe presumptuous of me but I'm going by the old motto "you get what you pay for".

I used to like Bellissimo but I'll never go there again. Or to any organisation that values my profession at €50 a week and promises absolutely no future role for you other than to put on your CV that you taught an idiot how to use social media.

Sully

Mod Note

Just being careful here but can someone point me to where it says the restaurant name and ill include it in the original post. Without it, we will have to remove the name of the restaurant.

Cheers

AdMMM

http://intern.jobbridge.ie/Default.aspx?q=B+fomdowzS8kaDnSlUDk1zaMUPiFEeNrNWjviinu490thmC2C0u+DGuf8GTL0RRgqLOTNvkVFwUqSgNyVaMuqPX1WyID7vyjL411Lu5GUXhrQ1gmag08Oo71fbK7lsC9mKeb6tPqwr6mceAsFSyDkgo9ebQ7dJBwy7B1JWq8aUrSHih806nQ6S2xLpU9WKlG38U9KfoEl/ZBLdIGa3UJ7/YgDthUH+CyFcB8YM+/GLbg1Y8pbUF9sni9Izssr9ZIF5YTUTCe8h615HnKFp2X0Ke0qVFA7UIA2Msdxq/Pvr0QByKs74jEYbm2sMcgmZscSbzWPMPkIqTgHW5nSOIdjEiMRKEMItqqJ1QwLMgYGqJcUoeKXtvr/0PKMh9wh3p57lzsSq8nsX1G1NIsjf2Qnd1nSb40ZQQ3vPVXNV+BSLN9YIPGh8PxxNJ6bxrVg8LnlIewwwdSJ+q7ZSVsDS+oF1I2bmkLMQ2LFEeXnSwzO8c=

Professey Chin

Just read through all that Bellissimo ad.
Well fcuk that with a rusty spoon :eek:

war_child

gman2k wrote: »

I complained about a certain Hotel on the Cork Rd. looking for waiting staff on the intern scheme. I was in touch also with a Gov party TD, and a Labour party figure also.
I got a letter back from Joan Burton defending the scheme and that it was appropriate for people looking for waiting jobs to avail of the scheme to gain valuable experience.
This is the position if the Labour party now.... socialists my [EMAIL="h@le"]h@le[/EMAIL].

I have to just say i worked in the service industry for a long time due to the fact my ole boy was a chef , and waiting aint easy , its a hard goin job with a lot of pressure , so any further experience you could gain would be hugely beneficial , especially if you get a restaurant of a high standard that are doing 200+ covers a night .....

old gregg

I've never eaten in Bellissimo but had planned to with 'er indoors while we take a break between now and the end of the month. They won't be getting any of my money now.
Here's their FB page if you'd care to let them know how you feel.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bellissimo-Ristorante-Italiano/175563478335

AdMMM

old gregg wrote: »

I've never eaten in Bellissimo but had planned to with 'er indoors while we take a break between now and the end of the month. They won't be getting any of my money now.
Here's their FB page if you'd care to let them know how you feel.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bellissimo-Ristorante-Italiano/175563478335

Jesus, that's a terrible looking page. Looks like it could do with some work........

Sully

Twelve companies have been disqualified from taking on interns under the JobBridge scheme.

The companies were banned after breaching rules, such as not providing appropriate mentoring, and filling an existing job vacancy with an internship.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/dozen-banned-from-hiring-jobbridge-interns-583057.html

I wonder are any Waterford based companies in the dirty dozen?

old gregg

Good question Sully. No doubt word will filter down over the next few days. So sad to see grasping employers abuse this.

Partizan

old gregg wrote: »

Good question Sully. No doubt word will filter down over the next few days. So sad to see grasping employers abuse this.

I dont know why everyone is surprised at this development. The Jobbridge Scheme, ill conceived and badly thought as it was, was always open to abuse. The only surprise is the low amount of employers caught abusing the system. The Scheme in economic terms is negative effect. It acts as a displacement of not only existing workers but also of potential employment as well. Second, it offers the jobbridge worker no legal or otherwise guarantee that he/she will gain meaningful employment out of it and lastly, its barefaced and legalised exploitation.

cococoady

While I know some employers abuse this system surely its down to the people looking for the jobs to decide if they want to do it. Anyone who takes an internship at the likes of McDonalds (I think I seen someone quote them in an earlier post) really needs to get their heads checked. Why anyone would is beyond me.

spankmemunkey

You had better be careful about complaing about waterford or youl be chased out of town:D

spankmemunkey

This is all down to Statistics, Its just to get people off the live register to say well we dont have x amount unemployed and thats how great we've been doing in Government.

Germany have been doing this for years with their Euro Jobs, they get to keep their dole but work for an extra euro when they take up similar roles/internships like our jobs bridge.

Alot of people are very angry there about this exploitation their government arent interested in how they feel just about stats.

Its amazing how similar things have gone here that were like that there too, influx of foreign workers making it an employers market leading to a downturn in 2006, although they have made their cuts a long time ago and are back in growth and well it is germany!:D

Sully

I thought people might like to read an article I spotted on BreakingNews earlier.

It is claimed that three out of five of those taking part in the Government's internship programme are securing employment.

...

However, the report raised some concerns about job displacement saying that some interns felt they were taken advantage of.

Source: http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/study-claims-high-success-rate-for-jobbridge-scheme-593043.html

So it backs up many peoples claim that JobBridge is a success but likewise it backs up the complaint a lot of people have about being taken advantage of. We have seen many examples of that locally and nationally in the scheme. The study was taken by Indecon consultants, not sure if it was on behalf of the government or just a general survey carried out.

old gregg

That breaking news article is pretty skimpy on details so not much credence can really be given to it. Some of the comments are entertaining though:

Slave labour, facilitated by a German/EU Sponsored Govt of Blueshirts...History repeating itself in a different place at a different time...The Parallels are there for all to see...!!!

7upfree

It is claimed that three out of five of those taking part in the Government's internship programme are securing employment.

As one contributor said........in Australia.

Interesting link:

www.scambridge.ie

hardybuck

Some of it is down to the calibre of the individuals who decide to participate in the scheme also.

Two interns were taken on where I work in the last 12 months. Both had good primary and masters degrees, both professionally qualified solicitors.

Both of the guys moved into paid jobs elsewhere towards the end of the internship. This was mostly due to their qualifications and their general enthusiasm I would say rather than JobBridge doing it for them.

If JobBridge did anything to help them, I suppose it showed prospective employers that they were enthusiastic enough about their professions to consider working for free.

AdMMM

Absolutely useless stats unless we have something to compare it to.

How many of those that didn't participate in the JobBridge scheme but were looking for jobs end up finding a job?

It's all well and good stating that 3/5 JobBridge participants found a job but if 4/5 people who didn't take part in JobBridge but were looking for a job and found one, then JobBridge is useless.

Dicky Pride

So, a the government release a report about a government run initiative. No chance of that containing any bias so...