Picked up via Jon Slattery’s blog – the Low Pay Commission is to investigate whether graduates employed on unpaid, long-term internships are being exploited by companies.
Recommendations on internships will be made by the committee as part of their annual review, which will also consider the impact of the recession of employing university leavers as unpaid for labour.
The comments on the piece are worth a read – with several commenters suggesting that this was commonplace in the media/arts industries prior to the recession.
Quoting commenter ‘lewislewis’:
“So given that there’s so much moaning about students choosing ‘easy’ subjects such as Media studies these days, wouldn’t an effective deterrent be to advise A-level students not to bother even trying to get into certain careers unless their parents can sub them for a few years in London post-uni? Maybe we’d end up with a few more scientists that way, even if they are frustrated journalists .”
The launch of the investigation follows a government-commissioned study last month, which suggested that journalism is an elite profession, dominated by the middle class as a result of the high costs of training and long-term unpaid internships.