Many final year undergraduates spend several months of their last year of university sending CVs and covering letters to institutions in the hope of securing a graduate internship post-graduation. For many of those seeking employment in competitive industries including journalism or law, internships provide a situation in which to demonstrate ability. Employers will remember enthusiastic interns. Internships may lead ultimately into entry or higher level positions when they become available. Many of these internships are unpaid: their long-term value is supposed to offset their short-term expense for costs including travel and other miscellaneous outgoings incurred.
The unpaid internship discriminates. Presuming that the offices aren't nestled conveniently at the end of the graduate's road, and that the graduate has amassed an average level of debt during their three or four year course, the internship discriminates against those who cannot afford to continue paying for opportunity. PR totems like, 'social mobility' and 'level-playing field' are squawked in public discourse about internships: it is suggested that internships are possible for any applicant who is selected. This is disingenuous: many graduates simply cannot keep spending in order to work for an institution that may or may not employ them in several years' time. Interns who take on unpaid works make a sacrifice; employers who will not reimburse their interns for even minimal costs, in essence, taunt the sacrifice that their interns are willing to make.
Ambition is easily exploited. An article posted on the BBC website in March 2010 suggested that unpaid internships violate minimum wage requirements. Further criticisms have been levelled at the Graduate Talent Pool, an initiative set up in 2009 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills under the last Labour government. The pool provides a database of internships aimed at graduates; many last for as long as six months but are unpaid for the duration of those months. Many of these placements also fail to offer even a minimal expenses budget for graduates travelling to work. Many interns work long hours to demonstrate their commitment to their placement: their commitment should be rewarded by a complementary commitment by their employers to demonstrate that the intern's time is not, essentially, fiscally worthless.
Even an expenses commitment would make a gratifying gesture to graduates. Ultimately, no one works for free. While it is tempting to protest that graduates ought not to demand too much of a sub-entry level placement, this simplifies the debate. Unpaid work is not demonstrative of a workplace environment: an internship is a limited mimesis of salaried work, and the rewards should also reflect this with a smaller, but fairer, package of expenses for the intern. This issue should be prioritised in a graduate market that continues to fall short. Employers who do not reconsider their internship programmes will rightly continue to skirt accusations of exploitation until this question is addressed.
Phoebe, GRB Journalist
