A new PaTH is coming. Is your business ready?
Have you heard of the Federal Government’s PaTH campaign? After a big announcement in the 2016 Budget, we’re now only six months away from introduction of the new scheme to bring a new wave of workers through the system – all with the backing and support of the Department of Employment.
PaTH (Prepare-Trial-Hire) is a three-phase approach for youth and the long-term unemployed to develop real skills and match them to appropriate internships to receive valuable real-life experience.
Your business could be a huge beneficiary of the new scheme. Scheduled to commence on 1 April 2017, the scheme is valued at almost $1 billion with a large amount of that funding targeted at supporting businesses involved in the programme.
For potential employees, there is a lot of support during the ‘preparation’ phase. For businesses, it’s the Trial and Hire phases that are most important, and that’s because the Government is throwing a LOT of cash at this.
If your business agrees to take on an ‘intern’ (a job-seeker who has successfully completed the Prepare phase), you will receive $1,000 per fortnight, and there is no need to pay any wages for up to 25 hours work per week.
What the scheme is literally banking on is that the intern will be have enough training to successfully complete the placement (for a maximum of three months) and then be moved into full-time employment, and be off the Department of Social Services’ books forever.
For more information and fact sheets, go straight to the source and Google ‘Youth Jobs PaTH’ for the Budget papers and fact sheets.