Mr. Paul Carroll:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to meet them to discuss the Department’s JobBridge and Youth Guarantee initiatives. I am a principal officer in the Department with responsibility, among other things, for the JobBridge scheme. I am joined by my colleague Mr. Terry Corcoran, principal officer with responsibility for activation policy. I will outline the current position on JobBridge, while Mr. Corcoran will address the Youth Guarantee.

JobBridge was introduced in July 2011 in response to the unprecedented collapse of the economy, particularly the sharp rise in unemployment. The primary aim of the scheme is to give unemployed people the opportunity to secure work experience and prove their competence to prospective employers, in other words, to break the cycle where they cannot find a job without experience but cannot gain experience without a job. Prior to the introduction of JobBridge, any unemployed person who wished to avail of an internship opportunity to gain work experience risked losing his or her jobseeker's payment as he or she was no longer considered to be genuinely available for and seeking work.

JobBridge addressed this anomaly and provided an additional top-up payment of €50 per week as a contribution to the costs incurred by job seekers in participating in an internship. It is important to note that participation in JobBridge is wholly voluntary. There is no obligation on job seekers to look for, or take up, a JobBridge internship and job seeker payments are not conditional on participation in JobBridge.

It is also worth noting that many firms, particularly small and medium sized firms, which constitute the vast majority of JobBridge host organisations, were able to grow their workforce during a period when access to working capital was very constrained. In this way, firms could seek to sustain or increase output and revenues and if successful, prove the business case to retain the interns as paid employees at the conclusion of the internship.

To date, JobBridge has attracted the voluntary participation of over 43,500 jobseekers and has encouraged over 17,800 host organisations to offer a wide range of work experience opportunities. There are currently approximately 4,770 people engaged in internships with approximately 1,650 further internship positions advertised on the Department’s website.

As previously advised to this committee, the Department commissioned an independent evaluation of JobBridge by Indecon. Given its scale and scope, the Indecon evaluation is, by a considerable margin, the most authoritative review completed to date. In addition to reviewing administrative data, its findings are based upon a survey group of over 4,400 interns with a response rate of over 53% and a survey group of over 3,000 host organisations with a response rate of over 49%. The results of this evaluation indicate that about 61% of interns progress into paid employment within a period of five months of completing their internship, with about 36% securing employment immediately on completion of the internship, of whom over 50% enter employment with the host organisation. These progression outcomes are the highest of any general employment or training programme offered by the State and compare very favourably with similar programmes in other countries. The outcomes are also reflected in the high levels of satisfaction reported by interns and host organisations. A total of 89% of interns surveyed felt that JobBridge had given them new skills, 73% said that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the nature of the work experience and 66% said they would recommend the experience to other job seekers. Employer and host organisations reported satisfaction levels of approximately 90%.

This is not to say that JobBridge host organisations will always provide a good experience or that interns will always find the experience worthwhile. However, in order to try to ensure that JobBridge provides a good basis for successful outcomes, the Department applies a number of conditions. The first condition is the implementation of the standard agreement, which is signed and agreed to by both the intern and the host organisation at the outset of the placement. This agreement clearly states the terms of the internship, including the expected working hours and the specific learning outcomes the intern will gain over the course of his or her internship.

Second, host organisations must agree to the basic terms and conditions of the scheme at the outset and before an application can be validated. These terms and conditions include the submission of a monthly monitoring and compliance reports. Third, host organisations must certify that the internship does not displace an existing employee and the host organisation must have no vacancies in the area of activity where the internship is offered. Fourth, there is a cooling-off period of six months between the end of one internship and the beginning of another. Fifth, limits related to the size of the host organisation are placed on the number of internships that it can offer. In addition, the Department provides a toolkit for host organisations including a guide to good mentoring and the elements of a good internship. The Department also conducts both random on-site inspections and inspections in response to complaints received. Over 11,800 monitoring visits have been conducted since the scheme’s inception, with over 4,600 last year alone. Reports indicate that 98% of these have been satisfactory. Remedial action is always taken in cases of non-compliance.

The economic environment today is very different to that of four years ago. There has been a significant and sustained increase in employment and the rate of unemployment continues to fall and is now at a new low of 9.4%. Therefore, the Department is commissioning a second independent evaluation of the scheme. The closing date for receipt of tenders was 19October 2015 and the assessment process is ongoing. It is expected that the evaluation will be completed and a final report published in early 2016.The results of this review will provide an evidential basis upon which to consider if and how the scheme might best be improved.