Access Changes For Irish Jobseekers

The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, T.D., has today announced that she will facilitate access, from 1 June this year, to Community Employment (CE) and Tús schemes for long-term unemployed jobseekers who are engaging in JobPath.  This has a number of benefits both for the vital services provided at a local level by participants on CE and Tús programmes and directly for the Department’s customers.  It maximises the assistance and services for people who are long-term unemployed through a combination of a quality work placement and personalised job seeking support provided through the JobPath service.

Customers currently engaged with the JobPath service and those who may be referred in future will have the option of applying for CE and Tús placement while continuing to engage with JobPath.

Minister Doherty today said “My Department and I consult widely with our customers and those delivering local services. I would like to ensure that local services will remain, and that my Department’s customers continue to benefit from practical work experience. I want to make sure that their valuable contribution to their local communities will continue, and that they continue to benefit from the personalised, case-managed activation support of the JobPath service.”

The Minister added: “By facilitating jobseekers who are on JobPath to also avail of a Tús or CE placements, we can ensure that they can benefit from the jobseeking support of JobPath while also availing of a part-time work placement provided by Tús, or a quality training and development opportunity provided by a CE scheme. In essence we will treat jobseekers in a similar way to the way we deal with part-time workers who are referred to JobPath.”

From a labour market activation policy perspective the implementation of this option is timely given the significant improvement in the labour market and the requirement to ensure that those people who are long-term unemployed continue to be case-managed having commenced on a labour market activation programme such as CE/ Tús. 

ABC Note: The Community Employment (CE) programme is designed to help people who are long-term unemployed (or otherwise disadvantaged) to get back to work by offering part-time and temporary placements in jobs based within local communities. Participants can take up other part-time work during their placement. After the placement, participants are encouraged to seek permanent jobs elsewhere, based on the experience and new skills they have gained while on a Community Employment scheme. Critics of the scheme point to forced labour and the 'race to the bottom'.