Your thoughts on unpaid internships? Slave labour or needs must?

[FrancesMumsnet]

Hello. We've been asked by the folks at InternAware for your comments, experiences and thoughts about unpaid internships, the system where young people work for free, sometimes for extended periods, in return for something to put on their CV - and maybe a foot on the first rung of their chosen career ladder.

InternAware are worried about the financial toll this system is taking on family life. They say 37% of interns complete 3 or more internships (European Youth Forum survey) and, as most
unpaid internships are based in London (where living costs are high), a single typical three-month internship could end up costing a much as £3000.

If you'd like to, you could sign InternAware's letter to Nick Clegg, which calls on the government to do something to help families struggling to help their children get a job. (Clegg, if you remember, said last year that "internships have been the almost exclusive preserve of the sharp-elbowed and the well-connected", and that they should be paid).

But most of all, we'd be interested in hearing your thoughts: do please post them here.

This has just reminded me of when I applied for a job with a local authority 20 years ago. I got a letter after the interview saying that I had been a very strong candidate, would I like to be a volunteer? Then it said that almost all volunteers then found paid employment with them after a year or two. Basically, they expected a certain amount of free labour before they'd let you in the door.

I do think that anything more than a few weeks should have some money, even if it's at subsistence level.

We take on interns every now and then. We wouldn't pay them, because we don't need them, they need us. If we needed another employee we would hire one, the interns are just an addition - quite helpful, sometimes more trouble than they are worth, but we get hundreds of letters every month from people wanting to intern, so we occasionally say yes if their cv is exceptionally good. I think there are many businesses like ours and you could never get us to pay interns, we would simply just stop taking them on.

I think unpaid for a couple of weeks is fine. This is surely more work experience than an internship though?

Un-paid internships are a disgrace that prevent those who have no connections or money from getting a foot in the door. Single parents are even more disadvantaged, especially if they don't have family who are willing/able to help them.

What a stupid error it is to bar those who don't live in the right areas or have the right connections from gaining experience just because you won't pay them for doing a fair days work.

When I graduated I had maxed my overdraft and credit card just to live. I immediately set to work in a low paid job to start paying it off working 7 days a week. I can't see how someone without family support or a well paying part time job or graduated without debt (which implies family support) can afford to intern.

It is just crap isn't it? This degree will cost you 27k plus living expenses and once you've done it then you will be expected to work for free for an indeterminate amount of time before you may be allowed a position on the bottom rung. It's hardly a system which promotes social mobility and meritocracy.

Me and dh have done well without much family support and money. We've done low paid graduate type work but never had to work for free to get a start in our careers. My Ds is 8 months and I'm already saving to pay for uni or whatever for him! It was unthinkable a generation ago and yet here we are.

I think that the problem is that many of these graduate internships (as opposed to the schemes for undergraduates in the vac) are effectively open-ended, indeterminate length positions, that exploit people by keeping them hanging on in hope of a job, when it's not clear whether they are actually getting valuable experience or are in with a chance of a job at the end of it.

I would however support short graduate internships that are treated as an extended job interview and that pay at a minimum food and travel expenses, and where there is actually a job to be had at the end of it.

Worth noting that even many "right-on" sectors, like the arts, are impossible to break into without having some other source of income and somewhere to live in London for a couple of years.

Student teachers are sent on a number of placements over the course of their training paying tuition fees to their university but receiving no remuneration for their time providing teaching support during their placements. I can't imagine the government freeing up more money to fund schools in order that they can pay their student teachers.

nancerama I got a bursary when I did teacher training plus no fees and a golden hello. I think I got 6k untaxed for the training. Different government but it's not totally inconceivable :)

I graduated in an arts subject, way back in the 90s.

I did notice that all the options typical for students in my department or similar subjects tended to involve lengthy periods of internship or low pay.

The most succesful individuals had already done lengthy periods of internship before even arriving at university. They were then consolidating their contacts in the time they were at university and well placed to continue their trajectory after graduation. A few good examples:

• Student A - ex public-school - had done work experience on a wildly popular morning TV show and still worked there once a week (paid) during his studies. Student A is now a presenter on the BBC.

• Student B - privately educated - had done work experience at a best-selling women's magazine and continued doing so each summer. Student B is now an editor on a women's glossy.

• Student C - ex public-school - had the most glittering CV you could imagine, internships in Parliament during his gap year, regularly interviewed national figures for the student newspaper. Became a journalist.

Other people were heading off towards acting (not my thing!), publishing (uncertain), theatre management (ha!) or arts/heritage type roles.

All areas that were interesting to me, but I was a realist and knew that I just couldn't afford to live that way!

I have very mixed feelings. On one hand they're a great way of getting experience. On the other, and particularly in these financially challenging times, they're becoming an 'acceptable' means of covering workloads.

I'm an Arts Manager in London but am originally from the northeast. You didn't see a lot of internships when I started working and so my first job was paid (not very much but nevertheless!). Ultimately this meant that I was able to afford to make the move down to London.

Internships started appearing in the arts about 10 years ago and I in fact managed an internship scheme for a small arts organisation for a time. What was clear is that there was a pattern to those applying for the positions - southeast based and able to live with parents who could support them. And this is the major problem. It limits the opportunities available to those who aren't in that position.

I'm good at my job and am passionate about my career. It is clear to me that I would not be doing this job had internships been the norm when I got into this industry.

And when arts funding is getting tighter and tighter, I can't blame small and medium sized arts organisations from introducing internship schemes in order to get the work done. In many cases interns aren't just there to learn but to be an essential and much needed member of staff. I feel uncomfortable about this fact.

Why would anyone want to work in a field that isn't prepared to pay people to do valuable work? It doesn't sound like a sustainable industry. A bit of work experience (one to two weeks) unpaid work is one thing (though not very useful for either employee or employer IMHO) but months of unpaid work? That's taking the piss.

I work in the pharmaceutical industry and we pay year in industry students (who are doing a year of work as part of their degree), as does the rest of the industry. It is valuable for us because we can assess people before having to commit to them full term (lots come back after they graduate or even after they do a PhD and the best students have done very well in the company during their career) but we also get a lot of valuable work out of them, why wouldn't we pay them? We also have a scheme where we take on new graduates on a years contract, they are paid on the same scale as permanent employees and as jobs come up the best ones get transferred to a permanent contract and we take on someone else on a short term contract. It is perfectly possible to pay people who don't have much experience but employ them in a way that allows flexibility from both ends. Of course the pharmaceuticals industry is a good employer, generally it has good maternity terms and conditions as well.

One issue is that there is no mechanism for funding that period of time when a person might be starting out and needing to do something that it is time consuming and upaid/very badly paid, but will ultimately lead to a career. It doesn't fall under student loans, jobseekers' allowance or Career Development Loans.

Should there be a pot of money people can access then pay back? Or will this just encourage more organisations to get people to work for free!

The other issue is accommodation costs. I think they have something called 'foyers' in France which are often charitably funded but enable single people to live at low cost, rather like student accommodation.

When I was young [old gimmer emoticon] many of my schoolfriends got corporate jobs straight from leaving school at 16yo.
A few years later, the same companies were only looking for 18yos with A-levels.
Then it was graduates.
Then graduates with a 2:1 or first.
Now it seems to be graduates with a good degree and substantial slush fund to keep them going while they work for free.

It's unfair for those without the spare money and some companies do exploit eager young people by having a rolling scheme for interns but never actually recruiting trainees (which places a burden on the companies who do invest in training).

Internships are slave labour. At the very least expenses should be paid. I'd be embarrassed to ask someone to work for free.

slave labour and the best way of keeping the top jobs for the old boys

My firm does not endorse unpaid internships for very good reasons and no more do I. Quite simply, they foster inequality, as though our university system were not unequal enough.

It would be a simple matter to bring internships within the ambit of the minimum wage legislation.

There is a related problem, particularly within the legal profession of paralegalism - where heavily indebted graduates then have to work for not much more than a minimum wage for years before they have a hope of a proper training contract (grump).

We are being horribly unfair to the younger generation. Really horribly unfair.

Haven't read all comments on this thread, but do have very strong opinions about this: from first hand experience of 'professions' where unpaid internships are par for the course, from professions where this is no longer the case, and as an educator and mentor to young people from different backgrounds.
Unpaid internships are not only shamefully unjust and exploitative, they also undermine and erode the standards of the 'professions' themselves for the simple and obvious reason that they impact so disastrously on competition between new entrants to those professions. Simple, really.

What LapsedPacifist and annath said.

The most an employer benefits from an internship is by having a good look at a potential candidate. It costs the employer quite a bit to supervise an intern properly and give them something significant to do.

The intern, on the other hand, benefits a lot from understanding how the sector actually works, making contacts, getting experience etc.

Some employers already pay interns: the City, which so many revile, offers many hundreds of summer internships that cover costs of living in London during the internship period and has been doing so for at least 15-20 years, possibly longer. I know, I did one myself and I was paid enough to live in student accommodation in zone 1, travel to work and feed myself.

I have now been on the other (hiring) side for a while and one of the most impressive candidates we hired recently had waitressed for years to save enough to do undergraduate degree, masters and work unpaid for 6 months to get experience. No support from her family and she did all this in a foreign country (she was not from the UK but moved to here to improve her chances). What she did is NOT required but made her stand put and reassured us, as prospective employers, that, although inexperienced in our field, she had grit, determination and was used to working hard. We hired her straight into a paid role and the other firm for which she was working unpaid released her within a week of her being offered a position with us. A success story that shows that those that roll up their sleeves do make it.

I agree that in principle longer internships should be paid BUT if it was compulsory it would actually reduce opportunities for young people, especially those from unusual backgrounds ( like the intern above) who currently can use internships to show commitment etc. Maybe it would be best to introduce bursaries or loans specifically for people undertaking meaningful internships...

Clearly unpaid interns who are doing a job for longer than a week or two are useful to the organisation they are working for. Even paid people who are useless at their jobs become a liability after a while. You don't keep somebody hanging around your office for months just because they like your office. You allow them through the door each day because they are contributing something.

I have done work experience/intern placements where there wasn't really anything for me to do, and also been on the other side of the fence, and it is excruciating. ("Well, would you like to photocopy this piece of paper again, and maybe you could reorganise all our tea bags?)

The other side of the coin is that of course some employers mislabel junior jobs as internships and use the interns as unpaid labour. But that is different from a true internship, which is usually designed to be an instructive introduction to the field.

Maybe one should differentiate clearly between the two by requiring internships to be no longer than a set period (3-6 months?) and not renewable, otherwise in some fields junior people will just end up being interns for years on end. But let's be careful that we don't end up reducing opportunities rather than increasing them. In other countries I know well almost all graduates do an unpaid internship while at uni or within a year of graduating. Many end up with a job at the end, even in a country with high youth unemployment. In some sectors unpaid interns turn into low-paid temps who then morph into consultants. But the alternative is no job, so competition for the unpaid internships is so high that those who cannot get one in-country go abroad....

When you compare people who are prepared to get up and move countries to get experience with those who complain they might have to move 200 miles to do so you begin to see why some people end up with a job and some don't. And I mean moving countries in situations where one first has to save enough to pay for the one-way ticket and to learn the language... Maybe I am mean-spirited this morning but maybe all those who say internships are disgusting, slave labour etc should stop and try to think more positively about what they can do to help young people show the qualities that will get them employed (complaining and expecting the world to change to suit you not being two of those).

When you compare people who are prepared to get up and move countries to get experience with those who complain they might have to move 200 miles to do so you begin to see why some people end up with a job and some don't.

But you might also see why somebody who just has to get out of bed in their parental home and catch a tube (funded by their parents) and hang out with their friends in the evening (using their parental allowance) might be slightly more likely to take a low paying/non-paying job than somebody who has to move 200 miles to a new city and fund themselves.

Just to add to my experience: The other interns lived with their parents in London, while I was paying rent and my own living costs out of my savings. I was not eligible for any funding. 4 graduates were working unpaid while 1 graduate was paid minimal costs as her assistant. There were no other staff. I left after two months as I couldn't afford to continue for the last four weeks.

Highly qualified graduates working unpaid for months on end is completely different to short term work experience. Companies are exploiting the current unemployment epidemic. Graduates are in a huge amount of debt (mine stands at £31,000 - student/tuition fee loan) and will do anything for a leg up into their chosen industry, be it publishing, politics, media etc. A friend did an unpaid 7 month internship with a prominent MP but has not found a paid role. They are no gurantee unless you have a well-connected family or went to a school that has a strong alumni.

I think unpaid internships are wrong. They definitely favour people with independent means or savings. If a job needs doing it should be paid for. (See also: workfare.)

I work in the charity sector. At my previous charity, interns are paid a small wage, and their expenses paid. This is much fairer.

Sui, complaining does change the world. It might shame MPs into stopping the widespread exploitation of interns/barring of opportunities to ordinary kids without wealthy Mummies and Daddies in Parliament, for instance. It was people who complained who won women and ordinary people the right to vote. It's putting up with unfairness and silencing complaints that means shitty stuff keeps on happening.

I think the rise of the internship is just another nail in the coffin for social mobility.

And that can't be right.

I say that, as someone who will be able to support my DC through internships and probably land them some choice ones through contacts too...but that still doesn't make it right.