Before the recession, internships were considered to be a stepping stone in a person’s career. They had the interns working inhumane conditions and many of them even gave out monetary compensation. All of that seems like a dream of the past as now the culture of “unpaid internships” has seemingly perpetuated the market.
Ross Perlin, the author of Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, shed light quite brilliantly, “One is that the internship system, if you can call it that, is chaotic and sprawling, and in many ways has gone off the rails; it’s not working as it should. That’s something which goes back to what’s been happening with the recession … People are becoming serial interns, doing four or five or six internships, none of which are leading to a job. Companies are not using internships in the way they used to in many cases, as a recruiting pipeline, as a way to bring talent into the firm. They’re using them as a cheap labor force that they’re cycling through without any prospect of bringing [interns] on as regular workers.”
Purpose of Internships
In theory, internships exist to prepare people for their career of choice and the “real world”. They exist for undergraduate students about to graduate, people making career changes, and others looking for real-time experience in their field of choice.
While the intended purpose of internships is just that, most of the internships have taken a different route. As shown in many movies, the interns are exploited beyond one’s imagination as they are made to run menial errands for everyone in the office like getting lunch and coffee, standing for hours at the xerox machine to print out pages that do not even need printing, and most horrifically, they are even forced to run personal errands for their supervisors like picking up dry cleaning and whatnot. Many corporates treat their interns like slaves where they have them labor away in the office past their decided upon hours and have interns do work that an employee should be doing. Such work done by interns is profitable for the company but they do not pay the interns even a single penny. Professor McDonald, professor of Work and Organisation at Queensland University of Technology’s business school, mentioned in a report, “I’m not saying all employers have the propensity to exploit young people but certainly we’ve seen enough exploitative cases of internships to know some are using it as a source of free labour.”
A recent study that was done on college students about internships during the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 showed some staggering statistics:
- 22% of college students possessed an internship in the last year
- 50% out of those were online and 50% were either in-person or hybrid
- 42% of the internships done online and 35% of the on-location internships were unpaid.
- 53% of those students who had an internship got it through personal networks (43% of online and 60% of in-person internships)
Unpaid Internships are for the Rich
The companies offering unpaid internships often feel justified having done so due to their claim of training the interns for “real work”. The catch is that an intern has to spend out of their pocket on transportation, meals, snacks, and other day-to-day costs. Moreover, many people cannot afford to do unpaid work as they have to make their ends meet and often choose to go for paid jobs rather than free internships. The factor of having to spend money out of one’s pocket for weeks stacks the odds against people of the middle or lower class. It translates to the painful fact that the people who can afford to do unpaid internships have an income of funds that cover their costs of the internship duration. Hence, it is said that unpaid internships are only for the wealthy class. Jill Medvedow, who is the director of Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and the chair of the AAMD’s Professional Issues Committee, highlighted, “It is obvious that unpaid internships are only available to those who have the means to work without pay.”
Studies have shown that marginalized groups are the ones most negatively affected by unpaid internships. It was found out that women, Black, Hispanic, Latino, and first-generation students had the highest percentages of holding unpaid and no internships. Joshua Kahn, who is the assistant director of Research and Public Policy at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) talked about a study and said, “Paid internships disproportionately go to white, male students with parents who have a college degree.” Another surprising discovery that the study made was that people with unpaid internships received the same number of job offers as those who did no internships at all. On this, Khan commented, “To me, this was more surprising… We always knew that there are differences between paid and unpaid interns, but the fact that unpaid interns did not have an advantage over those without an internship is a significant finding.”
Possible Root Causes
The president of the Ford Foundation aptly wrapped it up, “The broader implication is privilege multiplied by privilege, a compounding effect prejudiced against students who come from working-class or lower-income circumstances.” The question is, how is this gruesome practice still prevailing? In Professor McDonald’s opinion, one contributing factor is the parents belonging to the middle class who wish to see their children succeed no matter what. Another probable reason could be the education-employment gap. It has been said that undergraduate studies do not prepare students for real because the standard seems to be declining and studies are mainly theoretical. Faisal Bari, who is an economics professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, wrote about the gap between education and employment by highlighting how entry-level positions seem to ask for a ridiculous amount of experience and skills that most undergraduate students cannot possess. It leads to students who lack in skills to complete their intern duties and companies who are unwilling to teach them from scratch.
Many countries have laws in place that try to protect interns from being exploited by companies. The gist of the laws is that an intern should be given minimum wage and get proper training. Some of the countries hold that a contract should be signed between the two parties and the intern should have a byline for a permanent job at the company. Lastly, if companies are not open to giving monetary compensation to the interns, the companies should not earn anything out of work done by the intern, the intern is work-shadowing only, and the benefit received should be by the intern. Developed countries are constantly updating their laws to protect the rights of interns but there is still a long way to go. The only way to eradicate this exploitative practice is if change comes at every level; parents need to keep an eye out and advise their children against unpaid internships, and schools should not advertise illegal internships. It is up to the students to spread awareness amongst each other to help people stay away from these internships. Companies who are carrying out the culture of offering unpaid internships should put a stop to it and realize that they are missing out on a lot of talent because middle and lower-income groups are kept out.
