Reconsidering internships

For a lot of us, growing up during the Great Recession has really tapered our enthusiasm regarding job prospects after college.

Year after year, we’re told of the importance of internships in securing a non-guaranteed lifeline that might — really emphasizing the might here — lead us to a full-time job after our four or five years of going to class and hoping we don’t end up in mom and dad’s basement after graduation.

If we’re looking for some reassurance that an unpaid internship might be the golden ticket in a market where the unemployment rate for people between the ages of 19 and 31 stands at 15.8 percent, we probably shouldn’t look to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

According to that organization, only 37 percent of unpaid interns received a full-time job offer afterwards.

In comparison, 35.2 percent of people received a full-time job offer despite never participating in an internship.

So, naturally, more and more people are questioning whether internships are even worth it. It ultimately comes down to whether the internship is paid or not. According to that same report by the NACE, 63.1 percent were offered a full time job, compared to 37 percent of unpaid interns.

It’s not clear why paid interns ultimately outperform unpaid ones in the job market, but it has brought to attention the costs and benefits of internship programs for both employers and students.

Last week, Canada’s Ministry of Labour ruled that magazine internships, which have for years depended on unpaid interns to staff their offices, violate laws that prohibit full-time work without pay.  And just last year in the U.S., Conde Nast ended its internship programs after low-paid and unpaid interns sued the parent company of publications such as Vogue, GQ and others for paying them less minimum wage. Conde Nast argued that ending its internship programs was a better decision for the company than paying their interns. The cases are still pending.

Many defenders of unpaid internships argue the point of such programs — even if pay isn’t an immediate outcome of them — is that they ultimately provide experience and other intangible benefits.

But it seems that more and more unpaid internship programs are losing their appeal unless interns are able to support themselves financially or have someone who can. What is even more concerning is that because unpaid interns are not considered employees, almost all of them lack the same protections afforded to regular workers.

That’s why last week the New York City Council voted to define interns as employees “without regard to whether the employer pays them a salary or wage.”
This means unpaid interns now have the same protections from sexual harassment and discrimination as all other workers.

Only Washington, D.C., and Oregon have passed similar legislation.

Next semester, I’ll be interning in D.C. through the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. The internship will be unpaid, and in spite of that fact, I’m very much looking forward to it. But the reality is that unpaid internships have to be
reexamined.

Interns should be afforded the same protections as regular workers. And when it comes to pay, all of us would like some of the fruits of our labor.

Instead of only talking about providing pay for internships, we would much rather be talking about providing jobs for our generation and not the lifelines that might lead to us to one, any day of the week.

edsalas@indiana.edu