The work placement programme is a Government supported programme that brings employers and the unemployed together for a work experience placement for a maximum duration of nine months. The programme also provides an opportunity for people to keep their skills up-to-date and to network so that they can hear about jobs that come up as well as gain practical experience in new sectors/areas of employment. While participating on the programme a person in receipt of a jobseekers payment must continue to be genuinely seeking work and must take up an offer of paid employment if one arises. In this way participants may continue to satisfy the social welfare criteria of being available for and genuinely seeking work and retain the jobseekers payments that they are entitled to.
At present if participants on the programme were to be paid a top-up by their employer this, under current legislation, would constitute reckonable earnings from employment and could have implications for participants' social welfare entitlement and taxable status. In line with the Programme for Government the work placement programme, along with other employment programmes, will be reviewed.