The Australian Government has recently announced a new approach to encourage small businesses to provide internships and placements to help prepare young Australians for work.  

The program called “Youth Jobs PaTH or Prepare-Trial-Hire” helps small businesses by allowing them to trial a young person in a work-experience placement (called a PaTH internship) to find out their suitability for ongoing employment. At the same time, employers receive an incentive payment to help cover the costs of hosting an intern.

The program has three sets of objectives:

Prepare – to help young people prepare for work through Employability Skills Training to improve their chances of finding and keeping a regular job.

Trial – to help employers trial a young person in an internship for between 4 to 12 weeks (30 to 50 hours of work experience per fortnight). All employers who host an internship receive an upfront payment of $1000. Interns receive a $200 fortnightly incentive payment on top of their income support and are covered by insurance, both paid for by the Australian Government.

Hire – to help employers who take on an eligible young person in a permanent position by offering up to $10,000 to help contribute to the costs of hiring and training.

“The National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) supports this program wholeheartedly.  We believe it will encourage our members, and other employers, to take advantage of these incentives in order to help get more young people struggling to find a job into the workforce.  It’s a great initiative,” said CEO, Mr Suresh Manickam.

Further details about the Youth Jobs PaTH program may be found here.

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Media enquiries and interviews

Barry Jackson – National Marketing and Communications

E barry.jackson@neca.asn.au

D 02 9962 6904

M 0457 767 328

Policy enquiries

Andrew Jefferies – Policy and Projects

E andrew.jefferies@neca.asn.au

D 02 9439 8523

Notes for editors

1. NECA is the peak industry body representing the interests of electrical and communications contractors Australia-wide.
2. NECA is run by electrical contractors, for electrical contractors.
3. We have 5,000 contracting companies as members – and they in turn employ over 50,000 people Australia-wide.
4. NECA employs almost 350 people across its seven chapters (Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia).
5. The chapters provide NECA members with a range of services including: Industrial Relations, Health & Safety, Legal, Technical, Training, business-support services, product discounts and advocacy representation in Canberra with Government, Industry bodies and Training bodies.
6. NECA wholly-owns its RTOs and GTOs in NSW, VIC & WA, the EcoSmart Electricians initiative and ACRS – one of the national cabling registrars, and has a joint venture with a superannuation company in NSW (NESS Super).
7. NECA also employ around 2,000 apprentice electricians and provides training to a further 2,000.
8. For further information go to www.neca.asn.au.