Unpaid Internships Lead To Lower-Paying Jobs, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

The Guardian reports: Almost every graduate taking an unpaid internship can expect to be worse off three years later than if they had gone straight into work. That is the shock finding of the first survey of its kind of the career trajectories of tens of thousands of students over a six-year period. The study, conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, reveals that, three-and-a-half years after graduating, former interns face a salary penalty of approximately £3,500, compared with those who went straight into paid work, and £1,500 compared with those who went into further study... The study also found that those who took internships were less likely to go on to professional or managerial roles or be satisfied with their career compared with those who had gone straight into work.
Slashdot reader BarbaraHudson warns unpaid internships are also "a possible indicator of a large oversupply of workers to jobs available and downward pressure on pay." Anyone else want to share thoughts about the current job market for professionals -- or your own horror stories about your first job after college?

Comments

US parent here

[rsilvergun]

Not sure about the UK, but in the States you use unpaid internships to help get into your 300 level courses. After 30 years of budget cuts schools don't have enough space for all the applicants in most majors (especially medical, and not just full medical doctor, think Nursing, pharmacist, physical therapist, etc, etc). Even a perfect GPA won't guarantee you a spot anymore. So you volunteer, do extracurricular stuff and finally internships. My kid got lucky and got what's more or less a paid one. But it's like winning the lottery what with the number of applicants.

Re:"shock finding"?

[mikael]

In the UK, they were charging interns £1000/month to get "work experience" for six months.