With the amount of job opportunities for young people decreasing, the amount of unpaid internships has been growing. The question is if these employers are taking advantage of the students by not paying them. Federal and state regulators are convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws and are investigating many employers. “If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division.
I sympathize with a lot of the complaints made about unpaid internships in this article. Especially now, paid internships are becoming difficult to find as more and more companies see offering unpaid internships as a way to cut costs. I had no idea that there were legal restrictions preventing for profit companies from not paying their interns. Based on the criteria laid out in the article, I know many people who have participated in internships that would be deemed illegal. This really is a growing problem and the rules need to be better enforced.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this article because I did an unpaid internship for the entire fall semester and my expenditures certainly affected my experience. Furthermore, most financial internships require you to work more than the usual 9-5 work and it is very reasonable to see how it could be seen as exploitation. I am excited to see this change and am curious to see how this will affect the number of internships provided.
ReplyDelete