‘High-Risk Concerns About JobBridge’

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jobbridge

A JobBridge ad for four journalists at the Metro Herald in 2014

RTÉ reports:

Internal auditors at the Department of Social Protection have found high-risk concerns over the manner in which employers were allowed to sign up to the controversial JobBridge internship scheme.

According to the unpublished report, a copy of which was obtained by RTÉ’s This Week, the department’s auditors expressed concern over a lack of initial validation of the employers’ eligibility and whether their use of interns could lead to the possible displacement of real jobs.

The report noted that under the system of initial self-declaration, “employers make a statement on their application that the intern is not displacing a job vacancy,” going on to add “it is not possible to verify whether or not the internship is displacing a potential job vacancy”.

The auditors also found no checks into whether employers – or hosts – had the appropriate form of public or employer’s liability insurance, potentially exposing the minister and taxpayer financially in the event of an insurance claim.

There you go now.

Listen back to the This Week item on JobBridge here

Report finds high-risk concerns over employers using JobBridge (RTE)

Previously: JobBridge on Broadsheet

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20 thoughts on “‘High-Risk Concerns About JobBridge’

  1. Ivor

    A “great success” but mostly for parasite employers, including various government departments.

    They could reduce the SNA ratio and leave kids with high level needs because they knew schools could use job bridge. Without it, some of these kids would have been expelled. Was it displacing real employment? No. Because the same government had a cap on the number of SNAs. Government policy allowed the government to displace public sector jobs with free labour.

  2. DubLoony

    The original aim of jobbridge, launched at a time of near 30% youth unemployment, and return of mass emigration, was to deal with the “can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job” dilemma. It worked for a lot of people but obviously not for others.

    These missing basic checks are appalling, could have easily been remedied. No excuse for it.

  3. Robert

    So what we’ve been saying for a while. Interesting idea, awful implementation, except implementation far more awful than we had expected!

  4. 15 cent

    it was an awful idea executed terribly. I was on it for a bit, working for absolute cowboys. I had access to their company email, and could see endless emails from people who they owed money to. so i wasnt hopeful about them as an employer. they massively abused the jobsbridge system. then after i left jobsbridge asked me to submit a review. i told them all the ways the employer abused the system, and that they not only had no intention or means to offer anyone employment, but that it was also clear they were setting up a business to fail, and then start anew under a different alias and repeat, as they had been doing previously. needless to say i didn’t hear a word back from jobbridge and the cowboy outfit seem to be still going from what i see. more fool me thinking they might want to protect employees or interns as it were, over employers, regardless of how crooked. but no, i forgot. this is ireland. always in favour of the big guy, and willing to help them step on the little guy.

    1. ivan

      Oooh

      Reviews? Now, that’s something. Was everybody asked to submit a review who did a job-bridge? The data there would be interesting. Were the reviews just binned, or was there any sort of follow ups by the department? And if not, why bother with the reviews at all?

      1. 15 cent

        i presume everyone got the same mail as me. basically got an email asking to fill out a form and email back. and there was a part where you could add a note, so i detailed all that had happened, and nothing back. It was just all a part of it i guess, that went to an admin person who had their own boxes to tick. they wouldve receieved it, not looked at it, and i suppose file it away never to be found again. they might even have deleted them, as id imagine very few of them contained positive reports. either way, id doubt the people at jobsbridge would dig them out for us all to see, as it would be a further nail in their coffin. maybe we should make an appeal for all people with experiences from jobsbridge to submit their story, and then make them public.

    2. Disasta

      Did a little myself for a medical company who make billions. Short stint, treated well but did a menial job, worked hard the same as other doing the same job, but they were salaried, I got dole.

  5. fluffybiscuits

    My brother applied for a job doing programming as he was a college graduate. He was given a scam bridge job with an IT company who had him cleaning out bins and photocopying rather than learning any coding. Same goes for companies who earn big profits using it, no excuse for it at all. Currently its an employers market.

  6. Rob_G

    Did the Metro Herald not fold subsequently?

    Not saying that JobBridge is without any flaws, but not the best choice of company to illustrate that it is a big money-making scam for companies that are raking it in.

  7. The Real Jane

    I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I know a young woman graduate who was put on a jobbridge internship. If that’s the word. It all sounded good – the internship was in a field related to her degree and she was given some work to do. However, when the time came she was let go and an employee in the place told her that the sleazebag who runs the company had taken on, in succession, a large number of attractive young women interns, none of whom were ever employed.

    I honestly feel a bit grubby subsidizing the activities of that slimeball.

  8. Spaghetti Hoop

    The scheme was set up in 2011 and only now, five years later do they carry out an enquiry into its misuse? That’s the trouble with a lot of these hair-brained schemes; good in principle but absolutely no resources are dedicated to monitoring.

  9. rotide

    shame it’s gone, worked brilliantly for us. 6 full time employees from it and 2 that I know of in full time employment elsewhere a result of their time with us.

    if they could have ensured it was used properly it was the best thing this government came up with

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