Do not accept an unpaid internship. Courtesy | Hippopx
As students begin their internship search, they face a key question: Is an unpaid internship worth it?
This is a question they should never have to answer. The department of labor should ban unpaid internships just like they banned child labor.
For college students, internships are a necessity. They have become so intertwined with the idea of employment that since 2013, at least 60% of each graduating class participated in some form of internship during their time in college, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers
Because nearly 70% of employers later offer their interns full-time jobs, and students who completed an internship are 15% less likely to be unemployed in their first post-graduate years than those who did not, many students see internships as a worthwhile investment, even if they have to work for free.
With these pressures and opportunities weighing on them, as many as a million Americans work for nothing each year. In 2019, more than 43% of internships in America were unpaid.
Many students want so badly to fill out their resume that they pass up the estimated opportunity cost of $12,986 in order to work, quite literally, for free.
Some students, like me, are unable to afford such an opportunity cost, and end up taking a second job. My unpaid position forced me to take up a job at a local Qdoba, which pushed my total working hours north of 60 almost every week. These grueling weeks, however, were a necessity, as I couldn’t afford to lose the in-field experience I was receiving at my internship.
Most companies rely on student’s fears, like the ones I had, so that they can save a couple thousand dollars every summer. Stressed-out college students serve as the only demographic for unpaid internships because employers know that many are desperate enough to work for nothing. This leaves students in a manipulative form of volunteering, where interns’ efforts earn them no income.
On top of this, unpaid internships are, on average, less likely to advance a student’s career. In 2019, paid internships were 34% more likely than unpaid ones to lead to at least one job offer after graduation.
There is no reason why the department of labor allows this kind of unpaid labor to exist under the guise of offering interns valuable experience. First, the majority of unpaid interns spend their days taking coffee orders, answering phones, and making copies. The Economic Policy Institute found that many top business internships offered “no explicit academic or training component.” This work, while shameless and, often, thankless, should not be made illegal.
Second, this should apply doubly to unpaid interns who are gaining real experience they desire in their field of study. If they are genuinely acquiring valuable experience, then they are also providing real labor for their employers, and bringing in real value to the company. This alone should be enough reason to reward them monetarily for their efforts.
Personally, in the summer before my junior year, at my internship I found all of the real-world experience that I had hoped for, and much more.
While I was more than willing to put in the 60-plus hour work weeks that were required of my two jobs, there is no reason why this should have to be the reality for many students like me, when the solution lies, very simply, with offering a fair wage to your workers.
Interns, no matter how small their task, are still employees, and deserve the same right to pay as any full-time worker. The department of labor should not allow employers to take advantage of free workers by offering to fill out a line on a resume.
Interns across the nation are more than aware that they hold no job security, and neither legal nor health benefits, don’t allow monetary gain to be taken off of the table too, and make unpaid internships illegal.
