Unpaid work offers value to jobseekers
A few months ago Taylor Booth spent her days sitting at a computer, unsuccessfully applying for jobs.
She was making ends meet on the unemployment benefit and helped her parents clean the house to keep boredom at bay.
But in April, Booth was one of 20 unemployed people offered the chance to gain skills in customer service at The Warehouse as part of a work experience programme.
‘‘I was on another course with Future Leaders and I was struggling to get a job through that. Then this course came around and they asked if I wanted to do it, so I put my hand up,’’ she said.
The Warehouse is now offering 1000 16- to 24-year-olds the same opportunity to work at its stores for three weeks under the Ministry of Social Development’s work experience scheme.
The scheme allows any retailer to offer work experience to unemployed candidates in return for ‘‘an extra pair of hands’’ for up to a month.
Retailers do not have to pay wages, offer permanent work, pay ACC levies or employ trainees at the end of the work experience period.
Ministry of Social Development manager Amanda Nicolle said The Warehouse was the only national retailer to have signed up to the programme.
‘‘It’s not uncommon either here or overseas for work experience placements to be unpaid, but gaining that sort of experience can give young jobseekers, whatever their circumstances, a real head-start,’’ Nicolle said.
Booth said not being paid was not an issue. ‘‘To me it wasn’t unpaid because we are on the benefit anyway, so it was just work experience for all of us.’’
After the training, Booth was offered a job working with The Warehouse’s online team at the Lyall Bay store.
‘‘I’m packing and shipping orders to send to customers, but I am still looking for other jobs.’’
The Warehouse communities manager Shari French said the training gave young people real-world experience and a reference to add to their curriculum vitae.
‘‘The transformation is amazing. From day one they can’t make eye contact, their body language is slouched, and by the end they have so much pride and they stand up straight with more confidence,’’ she said.
The Warehouse’s programme was piloted with 20 young jobseekers in April, in Kaitaia, Whanganui and Wellington where youth unemployment is high.
Since then, 250 people have been through the programme, about 70 per cent got a job within three months and 50 were offered work at The Warehouse.
French said the programme was not a recruitment pipeline and the company derived no financial benefit from it.
‘‘There is genuine intent to give back to the community with this programme,’’ she said.
‘‘There are costs to our business to deliver it and we do not gain financially
"The transformation is amazing ... By the end they have so much pride and they stand up straight with more confidence." Shari French, left, The Warehouse communities manager
from it. It is part of our community support strategy.’’
Dundas Street employment lawyer Blair Scotland said although the trainees were not being paid, the scheme did not appear to be exploitative.
‘‘It’s a little bit of a grey area of law in New Zealand. You could argue it’s exploitative and these people should be paid the minimum wage if the work they are doing is something a normal employee would be paid for,’’ he said.
‘‘If it’s done to give people work skills and done under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Development and recognised by them as a training scheme, it could be difficult to argue it’s exploitation.’’