Responding to middle class fears that their children are being shut out from many professions (Law, Finance, Accountancy, the Media etc), the government has announced the creation of a National Internship Database (NID) – a one-stop-shop for every unemployed graduate’s needs.
Quite where this differs from previous announcements about a national internship scheme is anyone’s guess, and I am sure none of the work placements proposed have taken into account the problems we have mentioned on this site.
- How does creating a national database of internships solve the problem that most will be located in London and therefore only open to those who live there already or can afford to live there for months without pay?
- Does this policy address the fact that most internships break current employment laws in that they don’t pay NMW?
- If NMW isn’t paid… how are prospective interns going to afford these placements? Financed by a bankrupt state? Unlikely. I suspect they will follow the Milburn suggestion of making loans available for graduates. But with no guarantee of a job at the end of it, and not even an assurance of proper training, would this be £2000 well spent?
“Internship” – formally a buzzword for employers to justify cutting an entry-level position, now the inspiration for a policy dreamt up by clueless politicians. But that’s just my opinion.
Are internships the answer to our problems?
Internships do have their place and in theory this solves the problem of bad ones not being easily trackable. However, it’s a government scheme so it’ll probably go tits-up
I’m sorry for young people doing these.
Not one of your grandparents would work for free; not one of them went unpaid for their apprenticeships. All of them learned on the job with proper training and were paid. My dad was married with kids, just like most of the men of his generation before he was time-served.
I’ve been offered one too. I attended a job interview only to discover there would be no pay. I’d be working from home and using a dial-up connection, my connection at my expense. After a year I might have been offered a paid position. My response was to tell him I wanted to work with a reputable company and he was obviously not a reputable employer and lacked any sense of marality.
What this current generation of students need to do is picket the companies and organisations who are offering internships. You’ve got your education. It’s now time to stand up for yourselves, get yourselves some self respect and refuse to do it.
When sources of free labour dry up, they’ll pay you for your time. This is a nasty world. If you hand your self-esteem over to an organisation, don’t be surprised when you get hurt, when your self-esteem is crushed. Your self-esteem is precious and hard-earned. Protect it and never ever give it to an abusive organisation – and if they aren’t paying you, that is exactly what they are. Abusive. You wouldnt do it in a personal relationship, so why do it in a professional relationship?
Failing to stand up for yourselves means you have to take some responsibility too. No ifs, no buts. Establish your own companies, your own graudate recruitment companies. How many thousands of you are there every year? That’s a lot of potential demonstrators outside these companies and offices.