The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, together with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, announced details of the Work Placement Programme (and a pilot Short Time Working Training Programme) on Wednesday 27 May 2009. A press release is available here, from the website of the Department of Social and Family Afafirs. The summary of the plans from the press release is below.
The Work Placement Programme is a six-month work experience programme for an initial 2,000 individuals who are currently unemployed. Under this programme there will be two streams each consisting of an initial 1,000 places. The first stream is for graduates who before this year have attained a full award at level 7 or above on the National Framework of Qualifications and who have been receiving Job Seeker’s Allowance for the last six months.
The second stream will be open to all other individuals who have been receiving Job Seeker’s Allowance for the last six months. Under this stream 250 places are being ring fenced for those under 25 years of age.
Participants on both streams of the Work Placement Programme will continue to receive their existing social welfare entitlements from the Department of Social and Family Affairs for their duration on the programme.
The pilot Short Time Working Training Programme will provide two days training a week for 277 workers over a 52-week period. Under this scheme, workers who are on systematic short time working for 3-days a week and receiving social welfare payments for the two days they are not working will receive training for these two days. Participants on this programme will continue to receive their existing social welfare entitlements from the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
In the press release, the Tanaiste also says:
ReplyDelete"I have almost doubled the capacity of the job search services within FÁS from 6,500 to 12,250 persons per month, bringing the total number of places for referrals by the Department of Social and Family Affairs to 150,000 per year." "Through significant redeployment of resources, the number of activation, training and work experience places available through FÁS is 128,000, which is almost double the 66,000 places available at the end of last year. The majority of these additional places are being provided under FÁS Training Initiatives Strategy and are short courses."
Those interested in applying to the WPP should visit this website:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fas.ie/en/Job+Seeker/WPP/default.htm
According to the FAS website, providers of work placements can also come from the private sector:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fas.ie/en/Employer/WPP/default.htm