91–100 of 110 posts
is this really an issue in the tech industry? I'm studying in austria, absolved an internship in germany, got paid quite well and so did all my fellow students (internships all over europe, US, australia).
I partially hired him for his drive and experience, so it's hard to argue he didn't benefit from the internships, but it still doesn't sit right with me.
Do we have a good economic narrative for unpaid internships outside of naturally abusive talent driven industries (music, film, journalism)? Do internships just fall in this hole where you'd like to have an office wench but can't quite justify it in a budget, or is it entirely a made up social convention where older generations are extracting rents from new graduates? At any rate, the effect seems pretty clear to me:…
"... unpaid internships are huge drivers of inequality." I believe that they can be, but as someone who actually had an unpaid intern (and who eventually got said intern a job at the company where we were working), let me make a case that they do not have to be exploitative. I personally enjoy teaching, and have taught at two different universities. In addition to simply being a rewarding thing to do, it is a good wa…
Some people would be helped by mandating all internships be paid, but these are not the people who need the most help. The people who need the most help are the ones that would be cut off from any chance at early work experience by such a system.
The idea of everyone having a paid internship is nice, but many places will simply stop offering them if unpaid interns aren't an option.
Also, no one is forcing these students to work anywhere. Yes, market forces drive them towards an internship, but there are many internships in the market.
If unpaid internships were banned or otherwise made illegal, companies could still bring in students as volunteers, which are unpaid. They would still get the same experience and be in exactly the same position, except now they are no longer eligible for college credit and certain legal protections. How is that a better system?
Are there any compelling arguments why unpaid internships should be made illegal? If not illegal, then how should/could they be reformed?
Unpaid internships seem to be rare for programmers... - Programmers of any sort who can get the job done in demand. There are more people who want to pay them than programmers available. - Even inexperienced programmers add value - sometimes a tremendous amount of value. It's not too hard to find a non-critical, short term project that would still be very useful, and the intern starts adding value on day one. So empl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, an internship is a job. You work for an employer. That makes it a job. Pay the hell up.
How is arguing that "free" is too low any different than arguing "X" dollars is too low and should be more? If the marginal product of the interns labor is more than what is offered, then competing companies will bid up the wage rate until it equals the MPL. How is this a special case that is immune to the effects of supply/demand?
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/114/31740564320cb174fabflz1...
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42041000/gif/_42041256...
http://www.realitysandwich.com/fantasy_finance
http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2004/el20...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, if the employer can provide a liveable income in 20 hours/week, I've got no problem with that! But yes, it simply shouldn't exist. Well, maybe we can allow an exemption based on age or legal dependency status for teenage kids earning extra money at a movie theater. In that case, though, the parents are basically subsidizing the movie theater.
What if I have a spare 8 hours a week (say, Saturdays), and want to use them every week to earn some extra cash (at say $12 an hour, coming out to an extra $96 a week). Should I be prevented from doing this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not as crazy as you think. Many economists support this.
You are thinking of the Chicago and Austrian school economists on the subject of the minimum wage. We're not talking about minimum wages, except in the sense that they should be above zero . We are talking about the requirement that companies pay workers at all . Do you expect people to just slowly starve to death for the sheer joy of toiling away?
I graduated with a shitty major and I worked for free. I volunteered at a lab, to help get me some experience. I could've been doing something else, but hey, I couldn't get a job!
But now that I have a skill, and that skill is in demand... I'm imagining that I would just up and leave if I was told I wasn't going to get paid anything.
I would expect that people would just leave their jobs. Companies would learn that they can grab great quality employees if they pay them with profits.
It's not as complicated as you think, and I have no idea why you're trying to pin the absurd situation of people starving while toiling away on this policy. There are already lots of opportunities for people to work for free (volunteer groups, church organizations) yet we don't have people mindlessly working themselves to death.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an assumption underlying my premise: that organisations are in competition with one another. I think that's a fair assumption to make. I would expect that competing organisations would do anything legal to give them a leg up over the competition, including the hiring of workers they consider productive away from the competition. It's too risky otherwise; all it takes is for some other organisation to offer w…
Yes, I disagree. Again: employers know that each employer who stops paying any wages reinforces the non-paying equilibrium by increasing the price-point-zero oligopsony. Market dynamics work as you described when buyers are required to actually pay something.
I ask because, if your theory of how labor markets work is valid, it would seem that every professional sports team on the planet would be willing to reward you handsomely if you could demonstrate how this works in practice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Internships aren't for making money, they're for gaining experience. Getting paid for them is nice, but the experience is the important part. For some companies having to pay interns would just mean they wouldn't offer internships at all. The reason interns are paid less (or not at all) is that there are lower expectations for interns and other staff usually has to take time to mentor them or check their work. Maybe…
Maybe not the best example, but if a new paid employee says, "No, I've never used source control, what's that about?" it's a big problem. If an intern says it, you explain it and move on. And thus it came to pass that the unpaid internship replaced the entry-level job. I know there's no point in pleading with an economically rational capitalist like yourself, but stop exploiting the proletariat, or one of these days…
If you don't think you're being treated fair, that's exactly what you should do. Duh.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, what are you saying? Employment should be predicated on the employer giving the employee an adequate monetary reward in exchange for an adequate monetary reward for the employee? And if either side isn't getting their adequate monetary reward, the job shouldn't exist? This is a radical concept! Seriously though, perhaps I'm just cynical, but I seriously doubt that such internships won't be offered. Companies ge…
I agree individuals ought to get a cut if they benefit the company, but what if that benefit is only worth $2/hr?
