"These Christmas casual jobs in past years were a simple way for current workers and school leavers to get work over the summer period," he said. "These were real jobs that were paid for by Hungry Jack's." The Hungry Jack's ad for internships. A spokesman for Hungry Jack's confirmed it did take part in the PaTH program but said the company was unaware of the ad being approved "at a corporate level". He said Hungry Jack's did not currently have any interns and was not advertising for positions at the moment. "From time to time, internships are offered to the long-term unemployed. These internships ... last from four to 12 weeks and aim to assist people in gaining employment," the spokesman said. RAFFWU said the ad was posted in early December on a job search site for Centrelink recipients and was no longer available.

The job agency that appears to be behind the ad, MAX Solutions, did not respond to a request for comment. Under the PaTH program, the government pays interns an extra $200 a fortnight on top of their Centrelink payments, and pays the companies $1000 for taking part in the work trial. Employers can be paid up to $10,000 extra if they eventually hire an intern. Loading The Hungry Jack's ad said the role in Sydney was for 15 hours a week, which would mean an intern would earn the equivalent of $6.66 an hour. Interns can work up to 50 hours a fortnight under the program, which equates to $4 an hour if they worked the maximum allowed. A spokesman for federal Jobs Minister Kelly O'Dwyer confirmed positions at Hungry Jack's were part of PaTH and defended the program, saying it had been effective at getting people "off welfare and into work".

“A host business must have a reasonable prospect of employment for the young person after the internship and agree that existing workers will not be displaced or have their hours reduced," he said. He said that 70 per cent of PaTH participants found jobs within three months of completing an internship. But Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus called the PaTH scheme a "whopper rip-off". "These Christmas jobs (or extra hours for current Hungry Jack's employees) are replaced with $4/hour internships. And who pays? We do!" she posted on Twitter. In its first two years of operation, PaTH has signed up only 20 per cent of the employers needed to hit its target of getting 120,000 people into jobs over four years. Only 36,290 people secured a job in the first two years of the program.