Retail sector taps youth slaves – MacroBusiness (blog)

By Leith van Onselen

The Turnbull Government announced on Monday that it would expand its controversial Youth-Jobs PaTH program to prepare, trial and ultimately hire young Australians into the retail sector, which has driven a strong push-back from the union movement, Labor and The Greens. From 9News:

Up to 10,000 internships will be offered to unemployed youths over the next four years in a deal struck between the federal government and retail sector.

But not everybody is pleased with the scheme, with unions arguing if there are retail positions available, employers should instead be offering young welfare recipients ongoing work.

Jobless youths aged between 15 and 24 will undertake training before securing 12-week placements with major retailers under the governments PaTH internship program.

They will get a start at a job and, you know what, they could go on to great heights, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday

The PaTH scheme (Prepare, Trial, Hire) offers young jobseekers $200 a fortnight on top of their income support payments to undertake internships, and gives employers a $1000 upfront payment for taking them on

But Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said the program offered no path to qualification, employment or workforce protection.

This is a government-sanctioned program that actually borders on slavery, she told reporters in Melbourne.

If this does create new jobs, then pay the kids for the jobs. Pay them a wage. Theyre going to be productive. Theyre going to be contributing to the bottom line of these businesses

Labor and the Greens are opposed to the program, insisting it will allow young people to be exploited by employers.

If the PaTH program becomes simply a supply of cheap labour for employers who would otherwise be paying people full time wages to do that work, then thats a bad thing, deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek said.

About 620 young people have been given internships through the PaTH scheme since it began on April 1, with 82 young people securing ongoing work.

Separately, the policy director at Interns Australia, Clara Jordan-Baird, also criticised the program, noting that it risked normalising internship culture in the retail sector:

My first job was at Bakers Delight. I didnt need to do unpaid work experience for 12 weeks to learn how to do it. Nobody needs to. After a short period, you are performing productive work and deserve to be paid for it as an employee.

It shouldnt be normal to pop into your local Coffee Club and see an intern waitress working for free.

MB noted similar concerns when PaTH was initially announced. That is, while the PaTH program may help at the margins, it wont do much to increase the overall supply of youth jobs and could also lead to employers substituting a regular employee for an intern, saving themselves money in the process.

Consider PaTH from an employers perspective. They will get a free kick as the Government is not only the one paying the intern, but the employer also receives $1,000 up front for employing the intern without the need to worry about sick days, annual leave or penalty rates.

Why would an employer hire a young worker on a casual basis when they can effectively get paid to take on an intern? Indeed, the evidence on these types of programs shows that employers will generally substitute a worker receiving a wage subsidy for another worker who would otherwise have been hired.

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Retail sector taps youth slaves - MacroBusiness (blog)