Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

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15-24…employers are expected to provide work experience but there is no obligation on
them to retain subsidised young people at the end of the subsidy period…the subsidies …
provide employers with a greater incentive to take on people...” (DEYA (1983) synopsis:
xxvii).
Employers received the weekly subsidy, and it was described in 1980 as a form of on-thejob-training
where “Trainees must be 15 to 24 years of age; unemployed for 4 of the last
12 months; away for full-time education for 4 months in the last 12 months; registered
with the CES.” It was further stipulated that “Employers must provide proper trainee
supervision and pay the trainee the award or going rate.” Although the chief aim was
private employers, Commonwealth and State government could also participate in
SYETP. There was no rule on retention of the SYETP participant after the subsidy ended,
however “…there was an assumption that employers other than Commonwealth
Departments and Authorities would retain the participants after the subsidy period or that
participants would at least be able to obtain jobs on the basis of their programme
experience” (Baker (1984): 15).
SYETP operated as a 17 week placement for work-experience and on-the-job training,
with a limited wage subsidy to employers (BLMR (1983) p6, Table 1.3). As the section
tracing the historical development of SYETP shows, the subsidy limit changed in
response to new policy directives and to keep in line with price/wage increases. In some
cases, a ‘second-serve’ of SYETP operated as a follow-on to SYETP – where a person
who had been on SYETP, but then following this was unemployed for 4 consecutive
months, they then became eligible for a second 17 week placement. 26 There were several
variations of SYETP, which existed in a small number of cases.
For the Commonwealth Government employers, the subsidy covered full reimbursement
of wage costs. For Commonwealth employers, placements were not subject to any ‘staff
26 BLMR (1983) p33 and footnote 4 on page 35; Baker, S. (1984) p7 refers to this as a ‘second-serve’.