A couple of months ago, the Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe announced an initiative for the currently unemployed to return to education in order to retrain and upskill the labour force in this country. In the last few weeks, the details were announced. In total, 2500 places are open under the Labour Market Activation scheme, of which 1000 of them are at postgraduate level and 1500 at undergraduate level.

In Dublin, the following universities and institutions have places on offer:

• University College Dublin
• Trinity College Dublin
• Dublin City University
• Dublin Institute of Technology
• Institute of Technology Blanchardstown
• Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology
• Institute of Technology Tallaght Dublin
• National College of Ireland

For more information, please have a look at this page on the Higher Education Authority website of which there are links to FAQs related to both the postgraduate and undergraduate level free places (the files are PDF files).

For a list of postgraduate courses, click here.
For a list of undergraduate courses, click here.

Please note that some institutions are running information evening (e.g. National College of Ireland on Wednesday 19 August) while some require applicants to contact the relevant departments directly. As the majority of the courses will begin in September, it is prudent that anyone who’s interested start looking into this scheme as soon as possible. Moreover, some courses are allocated on a first come, first serve basis and places are limited. Good luck!

Ps: if you are on Twitter, you should follow Education Ireland.

This is one of those scary real life videos, which is not even about reality tv show. Instead it highlights the real problem during times of economic downturn. Previously, practically most of the convenient shops in town would have signs at the window offering casual/full time employments. Now, a single sign at one shop window for just a few days could evoke a line of over 500 applicants!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf31q4TC790[/youtube]

In fairness, the ratio for this particular employment interview session is about 1:5, given there are about 100+ positions to be filled for 3 new Londis stores. Quite a normal rate. I guess the surprise factor is actually seeing queue of this magnitude instead of a more traditional discreet interview appointment system favoured in this city.

I fear we have not seen the last of such open call interviews (while the number of jobs offered keeps on dwindling over time). Hard times people. Hard times.