March 11, 2011
An alarming number of employers are either unaware or are turning a blind eye to the law regarding internships, new research has revealed.
According to social enterprise, Internocracy, just 12% of senior and middle managers realise that unpaid internships may be illegal.
The research, carried out by YouGov, also found that 10% of 18 to 35-year-olds who have heard of internships understand that unpaid internships may be illegal. In addition, 59% of people who have heard of internships think that companies exploit interns as a source of free labour, whilst just 9% of people agree that companies should not pay their interns.
“When such low numbers of young people and employers actually understand the rights interns have in the workplace, it’s no wonder that exploitation is rife in popular sectors where competition for experience is fierce,” said Internocracy CEO, Becky Heath.
“With youth unemployment at a record high and social mobility at an all-time low, we simply cannot afford for this broken system to continue,” added Dom Potter, Co-founder of Internocracy.
Under current law, work experience staff are likely to be entitled to receive the national minimum wage (NMW) for any time spent at a firm. All workers are entitled to be paid NMW provided they are of school-leaving age or ordinarily work in the UK.
But as well as volunteers, there are other circumstances when a work experience placement will not be entitled to the NMW. These include:
· Apprentices under the age of 19 or apprentices over the age of 19 who are in their first year of apprenticeship;
· Individuals who undertake work experience resulting from government work placements and schemes funded by the European Social Fund;
· Students carrying out work experience under the European Union’s Leonardo da Vinci programme; and
· Workers on a higher education course where part of the course is work experience, provided this experience does not exceed one year and is required by the course.
