National internship programme ‘has potential’ to employ 20,000 graduates

A NATIONAL internship programme could take 20,000 graduates off the dole queues and help slow the level of emigration, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has claimed.

It is proposing that the scheme gives unemployed graduates valuable work experience while being allowed to receive the full rate of jobseeker’s benefit.

Almost 91,000 people under the age of 25 were on the live register in August, up from 51,300 in 2008, and just over 59,000 graduates were unemployed in March of this year.

The USI plan to tackle graduate unemployment, launched yesterday, also calls for measures to instil an entrepreneurship ethos in third-level students and improve their employability after graduating. Such measures would include ensuring all college courses have at least one entrepreneurship module and that creating an entrepreneurial mindset begins as early as primary education.

“USI is launching this policy with the welfare of thousands of Irish graduates in the balance and has asked the Government to act on these proposals now before it is too late,” said union president Gary Redmond.

He said previous internship programmes have been on too small a scale to make any real impact on the unemployment crisis.

“With dangerously high levels of graduate unemployment and soaring levels of emigration, USI feels we are fast reaching a point of no return for Irish graduates. The state has invested millions in education to create graduates who are renowned across the globe for their expertise and academic calibre,” said Mr Redmond.

The proposed internship programme should be overseen by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, and business should be actively sought to engage rather than waiting for employers to come on board.

In return, businesses that employ graduates after the internship of no more than one year concluded would be given a PRSI rebate for a fixed period.

The Irish Examiner reported last month that interim figures from the Higher Education Authority show almost one-in-10 of last year’s graduates had found work overseas within nine months of finishing college, in line with graduate emigration levels last seen in the mid-1990s.

A spokesperson for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Minister Batt O’Keeffe said he welcomes any constructive proposals to tackle graduate unemployment and to help get those who have lost jobs back to work.

He said that €1.2 billion is being invested by the Government in state agencies to create more than 270,000 jobs up to 2016 under the six-year capital review plan recently announced.

“We know the best way to get people back to work is to get our house in order.

“And we are doing that by fixing the banking system, restoring order to the public finances, regaining our competitiveness, investing in our enterprise agencies and getting credit flowing to small businesses,” he said.