A taxpayer-funded employability course is under fire after jobseekers in Australia complained that much of the compulsory training involved being shown irrelevant, inappropriate and, at-times, bizarre YouTube videos which included videos instructing jobseekers to use ChatGPT to write cover letters, reports The Guardian.

Under contracts signed by the Coalition last year, the federal government will pay private providers about AUD 500 million (USD 331 million) over five years to run Employability Skills Training (EST) courses as part of the AUD 7 billion (USD 4.64 billionWorkforce Australia program.

According to The Guardian, one graduate said he was compelled to do pre-employment training to keep receiving jobseeker payments, and said much of the course he completed consisted of watching YouTube videos. In another session, the instructor encouraged jobseekers to use ChatGPT to write cover letters and research job roles.

The Department of Workplace Relations and Training, the contracted EST provider, Wise Employment and its subcontractor, Paramount Training, all said the graduate’s course had deviated from the usual curriculum.

A Department of Employment and Workplace Relations spokesperson said Wise Employment was ‘fully responsible for the performance of EST services, including any subcontract’. Meanwhile, Wise Employment said it had recently been made aware of the situation and the course as described was ‘not curriculum-endorsed’.