bbam wrote: » i'm way past the intern stage myself and I can see why people would take it as an experience builder.. however.. cheap/free labour is not good for any market, bottom line is it provides a subsidised advantage for one business over another. I know of one MN who had a few rounds of redundancies and now has interns supporting the same work, under re-branded position titles. Eliminate a number of engineers, replace with interns who will take direction from one co-ordinating engineer to do the same tasks.
edanto wrote: » doctorg, would you know if any of the interns are on the jobbridge scheme? Are you on it yourself? The reason for asking is that only the Jobbridge scheme has rules about the max number of interns. Which will you choose between Exit, Voice or Loyalty?
doctorg wrote: » LOL Well here it seems interns are pretty much free!. We just have our computers and a desk but thats been here the whole so no cost to them. I got no training, just told to do XYZ which was in my skill set
dbran wrote: » Hi Interns are not really free in reality. First of all you have to have sufficient space and equipment for them to work with ie a PC, or a desk, phone line etc. Then you have to spend time to supervise and train them and potentially be in a position to take over when they leave to get paid jobs. I am sure there are people who may exploit the situation but in reality in the short term, the experience gained is easily worth the time invested. I know when I was looking for my first job I would have gladly worked for free just to get something other then "Chinese Delivery Guy" to have on the CV. When you are looking for the real first job this will stand to you. dbran
edanto wrote: » @doctorg, would you be able to clear up the question about the number of interns at your firm that are part of the Jobbridge scheme, if any? From your description, it sounds like the owners/managers are taking the mick with the number of interns, but your stay/go decision comes down to how valuable the experience is for you, and what else you could be doing with the time? There's no legal limit to the number of interns/volunteers that a company can take on [except for govt schemes as above], but if someone's taking you for granted then you have the usual three options Exit/Voice/Loyalty.
The Corinthian wrote: » Internships can be extremely important to anyone who has little or no commercial experience and is starting on their career. Given this they can also be effectively of little or no benefit to the intern, and simply used as a source of cheap labour. Speaking as someone in the IT sector, an example of the former would be as a developer, whereby the intern learns not so much the technology but how actual commercial projects are run (colleges are hopeless at this). An important factor, and IMO the responsibility of the employer, is that there is an ethical obligation (in return for what is in essence free labour) to expose the intern to experience that will be beneficial to them in the long term. Probably the best example of the latter relates to that last point. An intern enters an IT firm, looking to go into development. Instead, they're given some data-inputting role, using an in-house propitiatory system. That internship is completely useless to them and irrelevant to their future career. So while there's an element of caveat emptor in this, we do live in a society where we do make an effort to regulate and prevent such abuses - that's why pyramid schemes are illegal. My guess is that JobBridge is presently poorly regulated and thought out - we saw the same clusterfsck when the Student Summer Jobs Scheme was introduced in the late nineties; the first year or two of that were just an unmitigated scamfest. They'll probably tighten it up as the various abuses are discovered, over time. This is not to say that interns have no responsibility to avoid exploitation, but there's a role for regulation there too so that it's not too easy to exploit them.
bbam wrote: » I know of one MN who had a few rounds of redundancies and now has interns supporting the same work, under re-branded position titles. Eliminate a number of engineers, replace with interns who will take direction from one co-ordinating engineer to do the same tasks.
JD Dublin wrote: » Sorry but I have to jump in here - what you are coming out with is soft-left drivel. People have their free will, they choose to do these jobs, it's not compulsory. There are loads of jobs available, like office cleaning, that pay the minimum wage, so why not do that? Don't waste your time interning if that is your view. But wait - in 1 years time you will still be cleaning offices - nothing wrong with that by the way - whereas the intern may have taken the first steps in a career.
bbam wrote: » I have a problem with this sort of program.. Companies like this are running their business on free labour supplied by the state. this substantially lowers their operating costs, increases their compeditiveness compared to companies paying staff.. the companies payine staff can no longer operate in such an environment and Lay staff off in an effort to keep going.. And may even eventually close. The net result is the in terns gain "valuable" (i dout its that valuable) experience and others loose their jobs.. this is not a progressive scheme.
Gloomtastic! wrote: » Not all companies will employ interns through Jobsbridge with it's ratios. Sectors such as the media and fashion have always had people wanting to get their foot in the door and willing to work for nothing while being supported by the Bank of Mum and Dad.
Graham wrote: » Given pg633's link to the limits on the full-time/inter ratios, I can't imagine there are many(any) companies being run on free-intern labour. Is there any evidence of a company laying off full-time staff because they've been replaced by interns?
Hammertime wrote: » But you knew it was unpaid when you took the position ? And you I presume took it because you wanted experience? Your getting more experience than you could have hoped for as the company is using interns in the day to day running as against just glorified office runners.I don't see what the issue is, you have no contract so you can leave for another intern job. Surely both sides are getting exactly what they wanted out of the agreement? You are getting invaluable experience.
doctorg wrote: » So, I joined a company as an intern a few months ago to learn about different things! First this is an unpaid internship and I have to work from 9 to 6 with 1 hour lunch monday to friday. So when I got there I found that the company has more interns than employees and they are getting interns to do all their work without even paying them a penny. This can hardly be legal?? Because I could open a company and make a fortune without having a single employee. PS: They I they didn't get me to sign any contract so, there is basically no proof that I am working there.
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