EXCLUDED OUTNUMBER THE EXPLOITED THREE TO ONE, NEW SURVEY FINDS
It’s official – the number of young people who can’t afford to intern unpaid in London is far greater than the number who can. A must-read new survey – by the Unions21 Fair Work Commission – found that more than three in four 18- to 34-year-olds say they cannot afford to do an unpaid internship in the capital. Less a quarter say they can definitely, probably or maybe afford to work for free.
This confirms what Graduate Fog has suspected for a long time – that while those interns who are exploited by their employers are the ones most talked about in the media, they are in fact in the minority. The vast majority of their friends are being quietly excluded from these opportunities (and the careers they can help lead on to) on a massive scale, simply because they can’t afford to work for free for months on end. It’s hardly surprising, now the London School of Economics has confirmed that the average living cost in London is £1,000 a month.
And there is further cause for concern – as the findings appear to suggest that young people underestimate the value of their work as interns. Across all age groups, 71% of people say employees should always pay interns at least the minimum wage for the work they do – but among 18-34s (those most likely to be affected by unpaid internships) only 67% agree with that statement. Almost half (24%) say employers should continue to offer internships, even if unpaid, and and 9% saying they didn’t know. What’s going on? Are young people beginning to accept as fact the subliminal message from employers who use unpaid interns: that the reason that they won’t their young staff is because their work is worthless?
The survey also found that among 18- to 34-year-olds:
Low wages are a serious problem
Eight in 10 say the minimum wage is not sufficient to meet living costs in Britain today. Almost six in 10 (59%) say their wages are falling, frozen, or have increased by less than the rise in the cost of living.Few have a good relationship with their employer
Over half (54%) say their employer holds all or most of the power in their relationship (rating the relationship 0, 1, 2 or 3 – 0 being “Employer has all the power”, 10 being “Employee holds all the power”). Almost six in 10 (59%) say their current job is “Just a way to pay the bills until I can find something else to do” (as opposed to “My current job is one step in part of a longer career I am pursuing”). Over half (56%) said they would like to see more training in their job – and over half (55%) are currently considering changing jobs or going to a different employer. More than a third (39%) said they would be “Very unhappy” or “fairly unhappy” if they were still doing their current job in five years’ time.Finding some work is easy – but finding enough work is hard
Three quarters of those who are only in part-time paid employment say they would prefer to be working full-time. Over half (33%) say they are “very unsatisfied” or “fairly unsatisfied” that the government is doing enough to encourage employer to create well-paid jobs in their region.There is a big appetite for increasing the national minimum wage
Six in 10 say the government should increase the minimum wage to ensure everyone earns enough to meet reasonable living costs, even if this results in job losses. (Only three in 10 say it should stay as it is, to avoid job losses). Nearly half (48%) say they would be much more likely to buy goods or services from a company that pays its workforce a living wage (as opposed to the minimum wage), assuming they were no more expensive.There is a sense they were unprepared for joining the world of work
Close to half (45%) say the subjects they took at school prepared them “very badly” or “fairly badly” for work – and over a third (35%) say they received no careers advice at school. Over three quarters (77%) are unaware of the government’s Pay and Work Rights Helpline, the official way to complain about poor working conditions, or jobs and internships paying less than the minimum wage.
Graduate Fog finds these results fascinating – and troubling. To us, they suggest that a growing proportion of bright, young Britain is seriously struggling to get their careers started – and get their finances sorted. In the meantime, there is a serious breakdown in trust with government and employers alike. If that is the case, what will it take to persuade politicians and businesses to start investing – really investing – in this new generation of frustrated young workers?
*DO YOU AGREE WITH THE SURVEY’S FINDINGS?
How would you have answered the questions they asked? Do any of the results surprise you? How would you describe your relationship with your employer, or your feelings towards employers in general?
Does anyone know of anywhere in the world where I wouldn’t have to complete with a hundred other applicants for every vacancy? Maybe emigration is the answer?
Only 25% can afford to partake in London, only 37% lead to jobs in the US – what is wrong with this picture!? If the numbers in both countries are comparable then only a small fraction of young people are actually getting jobs from unpaid internships and yet we tout them as an essential way to get into the job market.
They are investing in them as apprentices, but apparently that’s not the type of investment you want. Blame capitalism.
Good luck living on £2.70 an hour or whatever it is you get being an Apprentice Administrator or Barman.
The rise of ‘internships’ and ‘apprenticeships’ in a high cost economy is bound to result in disaster. So while some might welcome people working for below minimum wage, it will lead to a trap and perverse incentives not to educate the most able from poor backgrounds. We will then look forward to more ‘skills shortages’ and immigration.
The only way out of this mess is to:
a) Lower the cost of living.
b) Pay people a basic reasonable some of money so they can live in a high cost economy.
Since no one is going to do the later then we should do the former. The biggest cost is accommodation…
Sadly, Skills Shortages have only ever manifested within those organisations which have accepted neither the risk, ownership, nor responsibility for investigating in any form of training – including providing sponsorship and placements for candidates at College/University – and if the only parties who are committed to training are the student (who has to pay £9K Liberal University Fees – Geez, thanks Nick Clegg et al) and State (providing subsidised student loans), then employers have absolutely no comment to make.
They remain part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The only solution is for the candidate to ignore any Unpaid Internship, and simply attempt to develop their career through Salaried Employment, that way, the employer, candidate and state wins. The employer pays someone to do a job, pays salary/tax/national insurance, the candidate spends their income on consumption related purchases, and the State receives tax and national insurance, which it can then use to fund essential services.
At lot of it is geography. I am fortunate that my parents live in reasonable commuting distance from London. My parents could afford to help me pay rail fare, they (like most parents I expect) would never be able afford to pay for me to live in London for months on end while I worked unpaid, or on a low income.
If you don’t live near London you’d need filthy rich parents to be able to take advantage of one of these unpaid internships. If it’s essential to complete one or many internships to get certain jobs then that is a lot of young people excluded based purely on their background rather than aptitude.
And yes we really need to get a grip on the cost of living.
Apologies for going off-topic … The government will be introducing RETROSPECTIVE emergency legislation on TUESDAY to deprive Cait Reilly and other abused DWP claimants of the backdated benefits due to them as a result of Reilly and Wilson’s victory in the High Court. Please see “the Guardian” for details.
If you think it’s wrong – and actually dangerous – for the government to bring in restrospective legislation to make legal what wasn’t, then please tell your own MP this and also email the party leaders.
Cameron has to be reached through his web form (to get it search under “Cameron”, “email address”). The others can be reached as follows:- milibande@parliament.uk, cleggn@parliament.uk.
One thing that concerns me in the longer term, is that* young people on the whole are not being trained to do lots of jobs anymore – apart from a small number of people in unpaid internships. If this doesn’t change then the employers’ (often somewhat spurious) claims of skills shortages may eventually come true, since it seems at present the only way to do a lot of jobs is to have already done the exact same thing. So ultimately HR workers, payroll administrators are (assuming these jobs still exist) going to only be able to come from a priviledged few who could intern unpaid, pay hundreds of pounds for a SAGE course (or somehow forsee that they should study this before graduating) etc. Or import workers from countries where they do train people 😉
There was even a blog by an older former detective and banker who found agencies treated him the same way as many young recent graduates – unless he’d done the exact same thing, they ignored his transferable skills. And had rebranded a job he says he used to teach 16-year-old school leavers in an afternoon (mostly involving arithmetic) as “Reconcilliations Officer” requiring a Maths degree.
*assuming these jobs aren’t automated away and/or our socio-economic system doesn’t pass the Singularity and become unrecognisable, or the pessimistic alternative (a severe energy crisis or nuclear war, leading to a Dark Age and full employment of sorts for those left)