Does it ever make sense to contribute your labour free of charge? Matthew Lewis, then an out-of-work masters graduate, decided it did. Sadly, the introductions to employers promised in lieu of a salary never materialised. Instead, he spent six months interning at a business development consultancy making sales calls without pay or commission. “I did the same job as the guys who hired me – but they were salaried and I wasn’t,” he says.
His is not an isolated case. Reports abound of unfair practices. In February, a BBC documentary, Who Gets the Best Jobs, highlighted the prevalence of unpaid internships in the world of fashion PR. More recently, HSBC’s legal division was accused of nepotism and bolstering social inequality when a senior employee implied that his department limited work experience to the offspring of its own executives. In April, Nick Clegg, the UK deputy prime minister, said Whitehall would ban informal internships as part of a drive to improve social mobility.
Now the controversy has been stoked further by former intern Ross Perlin. In an exposé of questionable practices, Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, he estimates there are 500,000 unpaid interns in the US, subsidising corporate America to the tune of $2bn a year.