Michael McDowell
Question:51 Mr. M. McDowell asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if he will provide a progress report on Workplace. [2909/97]
Written Answers. - Workplace Programme.
Workplace is designed to bring people who need jobs together with people who can provide jobs for a trial period of five weeks with no strings attached.
FÁS are actively promoting the programme among both employers and unemployed people who are at least six months out of work and at the end of January 1997, a total of 589 unemployed people had participated in Workplace. From an analysis of statistics at the end of December 1996, 55 per cent of the participants on Workplace are in the age bracket 20-30; 55 per cent of the participants on Workplace are with firms who have one to five employees; 60 per cent of the participants on Workplace are male and 77 per cent of the participants were in receipt of unemployment assistance before participating in Workplace. A preliminary analysis of outcomes by FÁS shows that at least 33 per cent of those who were on Workplace are now in employment.