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Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

irishstu.com

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Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#101

Post by synnik »

Wow. We hire almost every intern that works for us, unless they suck. Internships are also normally done pre-graduation from college. It is not a job, it is in exchange for college credit. We hire the day they graduate.

But it is also up to the intern to decide whether or not our internship is right for them. A overgeneralized diatribe like the one posted is aiming to get people to not intern at all, whereas the appropriate act would be to critically evaluate your options, and make an informed decision about each specific company.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#102

Post by yummyfajitas »

zeemonkee wrote: post #67
yummyfajitas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? The welfare system, i.e. the rest of us. If a potential employer chooses not to employ someone, who pays? The welfare system. For either low pay or no pay, low value workers will require welfare. I don't see how this is a valid argument for a minimum wage.

Well, the employer gets cheap (or even free) labour - and therefore higher profits - paid for by the taxpayer. In essence, the employer is exploiting the system as much as any "welfare queen". Sure, workers on minimum wage may receive benefits - but they would require less benefits than if there was no minimum wage.

People made unemployed by the minimum wage require more benefits than they would if they could be gainfully employed at (e.g.) 50% of minimum wage.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#103

Post by xsmasher »

jasonlotito wrote: post #81

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the idea of an internship about learning, not about producing? If your producing for the company something they are selling (or creating net value), don't you have to get paid? I mean, people here are talking about actually working on projects the company is earning money for. That's not an internship. Am I clueless, or are other people just ignorant?

Are you making a moral argument, or a legal one? If legal, what country?

The "idea of an internship" is experience and networking if you're the intern, recruiting if you're a smart company, and free/cheap labor if you're a dumb company.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#104

Post by JoeAltmaier »

pessimizer wrote: post #90
zeemonkee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the employer gets cheap (or even free) labour - and therefore higher profits - paid for by the taxpayer. In essence, the employer is exploiting the system as much as any "welfare queen". Sure, workers on minimum wage may receive benefits - but they would require less benefits than if there was no minimum wage.

"In 2004, a year in which Wal-Mart reported $9.1 billion in profits, the retailer's California employees collected $86 million in public assistance, according to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. [...]In 2004, Democratic staffers of the House education and workforce committee calculated that each 200-employee Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an average of more than $400,000 a year, based on entitlem…

Bull. The store didn't create the problem. The numbers may be correct; the conclusion is yellow journalism.

The store may even help alleviate the problem, by providing Some income for these people.

Its not very clever to ask WalMart to just pay these people more; how about UCBerkely show some sincerity and pay them themselves?

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#105

Post by Symmetry »

Produce wrote: post #48
cturner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a temptation in politics to see patterns and then fit language to it that kind of fits. It's important not to do this, because it ruins the sense of scale. For example, when someone describes a politician they don't like as a "fascist" it's disrespectful to the memory of people who are squashed under tanks and who are taken in the night by state agents, raped and murdered. Along these lines, it doesn't fit to…

You are attempting to understand the impact of a minimum wage from from an intellectual perspective but the map is not the territory. Just as having low taxes and few public services intellectually makes more sense but in reality reduces the quality of life in society, so it is with having a minimum wage. Compare the US and counties like Sweden for evidence. You assume that the minimum wage is there to protect incomp…

You are attempting to understand the impact of a minimum wage from from an intellectual perspective but the map is not the territory. Just as having low taxes and few public services intellectually makes more sense but in reality reduces the quality of life in society, so it is with having a minimum wage. Compare the US and counties like Sweden for evidence.

Funny thing about comparing the US and Sweden, the US has a minimum wage and Sweden doesn't. What Sweden does have lots of, though is a lot of re-distributive taxation[1]. If you go and look at actual real world economists instead of the caricatures that make it into our political debates in the US you'll find that most of them are actually democrats, and many like progressive income taxes, welfare, etc. But despite the fact that most of them like government spending, pretty much none of them like the minimum wage. You could say that Sweden is exactly how your typical democrat economist would run a country if they could, with Singapore being the conservative equivalent.

[1] Ok, their taxation structure is less progressive than the US's, but they spend much more of their taxes on services instead of, say, fighter planes so in practice its more re-distributive.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#106

Post by stevenwilkin »

rmc wrote: post #61
WillyF wrote: post #37

I didn't realize that the unpaid internship situation is as bad in Ireland as it is here in the U.S. My startup helps college students find entry level jobs and internships, so I'm constantly aware of what the latest trends are. One trend that really scares me is that there are some "career experts" whom I interact with regularly who offer their own unpaid virtual internships (I've seen lots of other internships like…

I didn't realize that the unpaid internship situation is as bad in Ireland as it is here in the U.S. Ireland has been hit by a strong recession. Unemployment is high (~15%), and particularly high amount young people. Many are emigrating to find other work. The media is full of stories about how there are no jobs. Which is a shame because there is a massive skill shortage if you know programming/sysadmining in Ireland…

I can vouch for the skills gap here in Ireland.

I have siblings working in fields which were quite dependent on the housing bubble and as such they have been out of work for some time.

On the other hand, every IT recruiter I know here is complaining about the lack of candidates and I've had as much work as I've wanted in the past few years.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#107

Post by yummyfajitas »

quanticle wrote: post #97
cturner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Through the '90s, it didn't matter how good a machinist you were - if you lived in the Detroit area, your employment prospects were poor, just because of the glut caused by hemorrhaging auto industry. In that setting you have to do one or more of retrain, move somewhere else, start your own business. Except the presence of a minimum wage makes two of those three more difficult than it would otherwise be. there is no…

>In that setting you have to do one or more of retrain, move somewhere else, start your own business. Except the presence of a minimum wage makes two of those three more difficult than it would otherwise be. Without savings, how do you pay for retraining? Without savings, how do you pay for relocation? Without savings, how do you start a new venture of your own? Without a minimum wage, how does a person on the very b…

Without savings, how do you pay for retraining?

One common method is to work for free for a short time, until you gain the skills necessary to perform a new job.

Without a minimum wage, how does a person on the very bottom of the social scale accumulate savings?

By reducing consumption.

Where I live, the GDP per capita is about 40x lower than the US. The top 5% tends to have a standard of living comparable to the bottom 5% of the US. The savings rate is 20%, compared to +/- 2-3% in the US.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#108

Post by jcromartie »

zeemonkee wrote: post #14

Unpaid internships are essentially a form of serfdom. The serf system in Russia IIRC started with free peasants who sold themselves into slavery to the landowner when they fell into debt - unlike African slaves in the US, who were essentially kidnapped into servitude. In the same vein people are taking up voluntary servitude in order to get a paid job - sometimes even paying for the privilege. Moreover - a point not…

I think there's even more to the parallel: many unpaid interns are kids coming from expensive schools with high levels of student debt.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#109

Post by rmc »

ianterrell wrote: post #74
ivanbernat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, how can I move there?

Some friends of mine (first degree friends, this is verified) moved to Dublin and just, well, didn't leave. At least in 2006 it was rather easy to get a tax identification number (I forget what it's called) with a signed affidavit and a witness saying you live at some address, and you can use that to get work. Now, without better documentation the government taxes you at the highest rate possible, and since you won't…

tax identification number (I forget what it's called)

PPS Number

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#110

Post by rmc »

ivanbernat wrote: post #69
rmc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize that the unpaid internship situation is as bad in Ireland as it is here in the U.S. Ireland has been hit by a strong recession. Unemployment is high (~15%), and particularly high amount young people. Many are emigrating to find other work. The media is full of stories about how there are no jobs. Which is a shame because there is a massive skill shortage if you know programming/sysadmining in Ireland…

Wow, how can I move there?

If you are a EU citizen you can move and live here (think there is some restriction on new accession states). If your grandparent is/was an Irish citizen, you are entitled to full Irish citizenship (and hence you can work here or anywhere else in the EU). Aside from that, I'm not sure.
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