The Jobbridge Scandal

Iwasfrozen

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

Iwasfrozen, any chance you can explain what's draconian about the minimum wage laws?

You might as well ask me why is snow white, we have one of the highest minimum wage laws in the world. Our high wages are the cause of a lot of potential investment being diverted and I've seen in my company a lot of jobs are being moved out to Poland purely because our minimum wage levels are too high.

Minimum wage laws, especially high ones like ours restrict the number of entry levels positions creating an artificial shortage of lower end jobs.

Tombi!

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

You might as well ask me why is snow white, we have one of the highest minimum wage laws in the world. Our high wages are the cause of a lot of potential investment being diverted and I've seen in my company a lot of jobs are being moved out to Poland purely because our minimum wage levels are too high.

Minimum wage laws, especially high ones like ours restrict the number of entry levels positions creating an artificial shortage of lower end jobs.

Yes but while this might be true for your workplace or something like learning how to work in an office that would take several months of training for someone that's completely new to the job, you have companies (like the coffee place I mentioned earlier) offering positions on JB that clearly do not need nine months of training by any stretch of the imagination.

This is the core issue here. And you seem to be ignoring it by claiming that you don't need to go for those positions. Which is true but it's still abuse of the scheme.

jank

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The entitlement among many is pretty scary, they expect to leave college and get a 25k internship in their desired field straight away.

The cubs would be in for a shock if they looked for an internship in London or Germany or Australia or the US. Take for example accountants. There is a huge supply of graduate accountants here in Sydney at the moment, so what the graduates have to do is do internships to get experience so they are more marketable for a job. It may take more than a year of unpaid work but once the foot is in the door then you should be alright.

People are also forgetting the impact of free third level fees are having in Ireland. Do people honestly think that if you give almost 50% of the population a degree then they can just get the piece of paper and waltz into a well pay 25k-35k a year graduate job when there are hundreds of other graduates out there as well? If they do, then no matter how educated they think they are, they are still naive. Having a degree entitles you to nothing today.

Lastly people are forgetting the impact of eastern accession states has had on the lower paid jobs. Its a Labour market where people compete for jobs. Welcome to reality!

66ad

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

You might as well ask me why is snow white, we have one of the highest minimum wage laws in the world. Our high wages are the cause of a lot of potential investment being diverted and I've seen in my company a lot of jobs are being moved out to Poland purely because our minimum wage levels are too high.

Minimum wage laws, especially high ones like ours restrict the number of entry levels positions creating an artificial shortage of lower end jobs.

What do you want? pay peanuts get monkeys. Cost of living is higher here than Poland, do you think paying someone €2 an hour you will get the same amount of quality as paying someone who is "worth thier worth".

Employees are the company and I'd rather pay someone who is competent and consciousness at what they do than paying for the cheapest "slaves".

Iwasfrozen

66ad wrote: »

What do you want? pay peanuts get monkeys. Cost of living is higher here than Poland, do you think paying someone €2 an hour you will get the same amount of quality as paying someone who is "worth thier worth".

Employees are the company and I'd rather pay someone who is competent and consciousness at what they do than paying for the cheapest "slaves".

There are guys coming out of college in Poland, equally as qualified as our guys and fluent in English who will work for a fraction of what an Irish graduate expects to make. And we're in a free movement agreement with these guys. That's the reality. Ireland's ascendency in the European order isn't set in stone and over the next few decades we should expect to see a normalisation of wages between both countries. That will mean quite a dramatic fall in the standard of living for the average Irish person with lower skilled / graduates being hit worse.

Iwasfrozen

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

Yes but while this might be true for your workplace or something like learning how to work in an office that would take several months of training for someone that's completely new to the job, you have companies (like the coffee place I mentioned earlier) offering positions on JB that clearly do not need nine months of training by any stretch of the imagination.

This is the core issue here. And you seem to be ignoring it by claiming that you don't need to go for those positions. Which is true but it's still abuse of the scheme.

I've made it very clear I only suggest jobbridge for positions with high training costs involved.

Tombi!

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I've made it very clear I only suggest jobbridge for positions with high training costs involved.

So then you'd agree that the positions with no to little training costs should be removed from JB or are you still of the position that they should just be ignored

Iwasfrozen

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

So then you'd agree that the positions with no to little training costs should be removed from JB or are you still of the position that they should just be ignored

No, that's needless.

Tombi!

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No, that's needless.

why

Iwasfrozen

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

why

Because deciding what is and isn't a fair use of the scheme is an inexact science and not always obvious, it's better to put that power in the hands of the applicant.

Besides maybe someone wants to do a car washing intership on jb, it takes all sorts.

Hans Bricks

Its quite galling telling a skilled graduate while holding a straight face, that they aren't even worth the minimum wage a menial laborer is on.

I did an internship which was fully paid as did many others I know and go to college with. I'm set to start a graduate program in June with a healthy 23,000 k starting wage. Many others in my class have secured the same type of graduate roles too, fully paid. We offer €230 a week to those on JSB, no excuse for employers to not even bump up an intern's weekly income on top of that 230 they receive to equal it out to minimum wage.

Internship seems to have become a convenient buzzword since 2007/8.

tomwaterford

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Because deciding what is and isn't a fair use of the scheme is an inexact science and not always obvious, it's better to put that power in the hands of the applicant.

Besides maybe someone wants to do a car washing intership on jb, it takes all sorts.

:pac::pac::pac::pac:

not as much as they want a proper paying job washing cars??



look it...how are you trying to defend mickey mouse internships like that

Tombi!

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Because deciding what is and isn't a fair use of the scheme is an inexact science and not always obvious, it's better to put that power in the hands of the applicant.

Besides maybe someone wants to do a car washing intership on jb, it takes all sorts.

Do you believe it takes nine months to train?

Tombi!

Hans Bricks wrote: »

Its quite galling telling a skilled graduate while holding a straight face, that they aren't even worth the minimum wage a menial laborer is on.

I did an internship which was fully paid as did many others I know and go to college with. I'm set to start a graduate program in June with a healthy 23,000 k starting wage. Many others in my class have secured the same type of graduate roles too, fully paid. We offer €230 a week to those on JSB, no excuse for employers to not even bump up an intern's weekly income on top of that 230 they receive to equal it out to minimum wage.

Internship seems to have become a convenient buzzword since 2007/8.

AFAIK, it's actually against the rules to give any sort of bonus or reward if they're on JB

languagenerd

jank wrote: »

The cubs would be in for a shock if they looked for an internship in London or Germany or Australia or the US. Take for example accountants. There is a huge supply of graduate accountants here in Sydney at the moment, so what the graduates have to do is do internships to get experience so they are more marketable for a job. It may take more than a year of unpaid work but once the foot is in the door then you should be alright.

People are also forgetting the impact of free third level fees are having in Ireland. Do people honestly think that if you give almost 50% of the population a degree then they can just get the piece of paper and waltz into a well pay 25k-35k a year graduate job when there are hundreds of other graduates out there as well? If they do, then no matter how educated they think they are, they are still naive. Having a degree entitles you to nothing today.

Lastly people are forgetting the impact of eastern accession states has had on the lower paid jobs. Its a Labour market where people compete for jobs. Welcome to reality!

But even if you accept that you have to do an internship to get into a job, JobBridge has cut these internships off from a lot of the people who want to do them.

All of the internships and entry-level jobs in my field seem to have been replaced with JobBridge. I expect to have to do an internship when I graduate from my Masters next year to get my foot in the door. But I've never been on the dole, so these are all off-limits to me now. I have graduate friends in their early 20s who can't get a job and are not entitled to the dole (because you're judged on your parents' income until you're 24), so they can't do a JobBridge internship either, even though they would jump at the chance to do something like that for the experience they so badly need.

And that's not to mention all the abuse of the system - someone who is doing a full-time job (stacking shelves, cleaning a school, being an assistant librarian) should get a full-time wage. People aren't saying they should "waltz into a 25-35k job", they merely want to be paid for the work they're doing.

How do we expect any of these people to be able to afford to live? How can someone in their early 20s afford to live in Ireland while doing an internship? Do we honestly expect parents to keep providing for their adult children until the age of 25?

jank

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

There are guys coming out of college in Poland, equally as qualified as our guys and fluent in English who will work for a fraction of what an Irish graduate expects to make. And we're in a free movement agreement with these guys. That's the reality. Ireland's ascendency in the European order isn't set in stone and over the next few decades we should expect to see a normalisation of wages between both countries. That will mean quite a dramatic fall in the standard of living for the average Irish person with lower skilled / graduates being hit worse.

This. My father was heavily involved running a scheme with the help of FAS back in the 2000's. He had a few eastern Europeans working on this scheme when many were making the trip over. The money was peanuts at the time, about 100 euro a week or something but it was a training scheme not a job. The thing is though these people were highly highly qualified. Degrees, Masters, PHD's coming out of their ears. They were purely playing the long game. Work in the scheme for a few months or a year, network and doors would open up later on in other fields and hopefully a field they were qualified in. He often gets asked to do references for people he was in charge of and you would be surprised on what jobs they are going now. Some are in really great jobs, examples would be someone working in the dept of An Taoiseach, another is in Brussels attached to some diplomat, many are working for American multinationals......

Being an immigrant, you do what is necessary. You want to know my first job when I landed in NZ over 6 years ago? Packing socks and shampoo in boxes for 9 hours a day for about 5.50 euro an hour.... Now my annual salary is well into touching 6 figures in euro terms... You either get on with it or not. Those that get on with it will be fine and will make it, those that prefer to spend their energy in moaning about their own predicament will end up with a self full-filling prophecy of negativity and failure.

jank

languagenerd wrote: »

How do we expect any of these people to be able to afford to live? How can someone in their early 20s afford to live in Ireland while doing an internship? Do we honestly expect parents to keep providing for their adult children until the age of 25?

How did these people afford to live when they were in university? When you are young you have to do whats necessary to get on with it.

Tony EH

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Besides maybe someone wants to do a car washing intership on jb, it takes all sorts.

Only somebody who isn't remotely near to this situation would have the ignorance to say such a thing.

Tony EH

Hans Bricks wrote: »

Internship seems to have become a convenient buzzword since 2007/8.

Only for exploiters.

jobbridge4life

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

AFAIK, it's actually against the rules to give any sort of bonus or reward if they're on JB

You are wrong.

The_Captain

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Because deciding what is and isn't a fair use of the scheme is an inexact science and not always obvious, it's better to put that power in the hands of the applicant.

Besides maybe someone wants to do a car washing intership on jb, it takes all sorts.

Incidentally, are you an employer or involved in a company taking on interns?

Penny Tration

jank wrote: »

How did these people afford to live when they were in university? When you are young you have to do whats necessary to get on with it.

Most people I knew in uni had their rent paid by their parents, or lived at home and had a part time job. It's pretty much impossible to be independent while earning what you get for JB.

Intifada

I am a "success story" of the jobbridge scheme/scam I suppose. I did it for 5 or 6 months before being taken on and paid a human wage. I still don't think it justifies JobBridge and I made sure to tell them as much in the evaluation form I had to fill out (incidentally I don't think they read it, as I absolutely tore into them but then got an email a few weeks later asking would I put myself forward for any potential media interviews etc for the program :pac:).

Would I have got my job without having done the Jobbridge? Probably not. But I was just as capable an employee before I started it. It's a vicious cycle because employers aren't going to take on any entry level positions when they can take on a jobbridge slave.

PopePalpatine

Jenny Thalia wrote: »

Most people I knew in uni had their rent paid by their parents, or lived at home and had a part time job. It's pretty much impossible to be independent while earning what you get for JB.

Do you think jank and his fellow libertarians give half a crap about those whose families couldn't afford to pay their children's rents?

Penny Tration

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Do you think jank and his fellow libertarians give half a crap about those whose families couldn't afford to pay their children's rents?

Mine sure couldn't. So, I went to a college within a commutable distance, worked 30 hours a week (earning more than a JB slave), and still relied on my folks a lot.

238 per week is not a livable wage, no matter what jank likes to think.

Daenarys

The_Captain wrote: »

Incidentally, are you an employer or involved in a company taking on interns?

Iwasfrozen is only in the workforce about a year or two! Have a look at his older posts

When he gets to middle management and is up for the chop, he'll be back with his tail between his legs because he's being forced to take on a JobBridge in his 30s.

Having too much experience is as much a curse to getting hired as having none, so to prevent the gap widening on the CV, you've no choice but to do a 40hour internship you're overqualified for, for €50pw while the company laughs all the way to the bank; an employee worth 35k (just using the supposed "average" here) costing them nothing.

Iwasfrozen

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Do you think jank and his fellow libertarians give half a crap about those whose families couldn't afford to pay their children's rents?

You make a lot of assumptions about me assumptions I refuse to comment on to avoid giving out personal info but I will tell you I'm not from a rich family.

Tearin It Up

Applied for a position early last week. You have to be qualified which I am, so its not a shelf stacker internship.

No experience required.

The internship add was updated the day after I sent in my application. What does that mean? Updated to get pushed to the top of the list? The day after I sent in my application. Did they not have enough applicants to update their add. Was mine not good enough?

Still haven't heard a thing back from them. What were they looking for? Experience without pay. Did they not like my name, or there's always more people with experience and out of work.

Its soul destroying.

The_Captain

Tearin It Up wrote: »

Applied for a position early last week. You have to be qualified which I am, so its not a shelf stacker internship.

No experience required.

The internship add was updated the day after I sent in my application. What does that mean? Updated to get pushed to the top of the list? The day after I sent in my application. Did they not have enough applicants to update their add. Was mine not good enough?

Still haven't heard a thing back from them. What were they looking for? Experience without pay. Did they not like my name, or there's always more people with experience and out of work.

Its soul destroying.

lol, I know a place looking for phd holders to work as van drivers. Quals don't mean fook all when you're in a position to have to consider jobbridge

Xenji

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

AFAIK, it's actually against the rules to give any sort of bonus or reward if they're on JB

jobbridge4life wrote: »

You are wrong.

Ah no he is right, it is in the rules of the scheme.

http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/JobBridge-Interns.aspx#q5

Organisations must not pay top up contributions.