The government announced that if re-elected it would pursue a new workplace internship scheme that would offer financial incentives to both employers and jobseekers.

A business would get a $1000 payment and an unemployed young person $100 a week on top of Centrelink payments for up to 25 hours of unpaid work. 

Youth Network of Tasmania chief executive Joanna Siejka said such work experience was best used by young people as a pathway towards finding work that suited their skills, interests and needs

“Young people have told us that they want more opportunities to gain meaningful work experience, and that often they are unsure how to go about it,” she said.

“The key here is that the work experience needs to be meaningful to the young person and that it doesn’t take advantage of, or exploit, the young person.

“Internships, which are likely to be for longer periods of time and ask more of the young person are more likely to do this.

“In the past, there has been considerable criticism targeted towards unpaid workplace internships because many people believe that these often take advantage of young people by asking them to work considerable hours and without any real potential for paid employment at the end.”

“This criticism has obviously increased with the proposal of the Government’s new PaTH initiative.”

University of Tasmania sociology research fellow Brendan Churchill, who co-authored an extensive report that tracked youth unemployment over 20 years, said on Tuesday that apprenticeships could be adversely affected by the new scheme.

Master Builders Association of Tasmania executive director Michael Kerschbaum said apprenticeship costs had risen markedly since 2010 with a wage increase of almost 50 per cent.

A first-year apprentice now gets 55 per cent of a tradesman’s rate and a second-year apprentice gets 65 per cent.

Despite this, Mr Kerschbaum said more were needed on work sites.

“Nationally we need closer to 100,000 apprentices going through the system rather than the current 43,100,” he said.