We're in Dire Straits When the Only Employment Sector Catching Fire Is in Unpaid Internships

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/151029/we%27re_in_dire_straits_when_the_only_employment_sector_catching_fire_is_in_unpaid_internships/

The United States still counts a depressing 24 million unemployed, while the number of exploited unpaid workers keeps growing.

Here's a particularly nasty sign that the economy is still weaker than Donald Trump's presidential run was: The United States still counts a depressing 24 million unemployed currently hunting for a full-time job, and the only employment sector really catching fire is unpaid jobs and internships, which have steadily increased to fill the undignified void. Whether you're a new college graduate or an unemployed veteran of the pre-recession employment landscape, you're now either fighting for a shrinking pool of new low-paying positions or plenty of gratis gigs where you won't ever see a dime for your earnest blood, sweat and tears.

Last week, the Department of Labor announced a minuscule drop in unemployment insurance claims to 409,000, barely below the annual average's wheelhouse of 412,000 but well above 2011's low of 375,000. For those who graduated college long ago, peak oil and climate change have continued to initiate obvious yet still destabilizing price increases in commodities like food and oil. Health insurance hikes continue unabated and unjustified, and over half of Americans think the housing market is moribund.

Meanwhile on campus, corporations are still avoiding college job fairs. Escalating tuition costs are said to be inevitable. Perhaps that's just what happens when the University of Chicago decides to host an academic conference on Jersey Shore. Or perhaps Americans who bought into the dream of hard work, ATM housing and paid health care have now devolved to the point that they're indistinguishable from college graduates just entering an anemic job market that shows zero signs of progressing. At this point, the only difference between the two is who eventually moves beyond the increasingly fashionable unpaid job or internship to a paid position.

More at the link --

[CTyankee]

1. For young grads, it's a way of getting a foot in the door and learning

at the profession you eventually want to enter as a paid employee. Plus, it gives you contacts. Of course, you'll probably have to mow lawns or wait tables on the side but if you live with your parents you can probably make do, even if it is rank exploitation by the corporations (but what else is new there!).

However, if you are unemployed and not so young, it's a different story.

The grim truth is that until our economy has plentiful, well paying jobs, such exploitation will be seen as some people's only way to eventual employment...

[Harmony Blue]

2. It is NOT a good idea for young grads to work for free

It lowers the bar for everyone else, and then it eventually will become the norm. Furthermore, a grad with college skills should be earning at least as much as someone who bags groceries (minimum wage) starting out. Anything less than that, and you are surrendering your rights as a worker that so many died fighting for.

If most employers see that you worked for free as an intern, they will not even bother hiring you because as a college grad you don't understand the value of money.

And the only contacts you will have are with those that are predatory exploiters.

In summary, you want to work at a job that pays you, and surround yourself with employers who respect you, and build contacts who do not exploit you. That is the smart long term investment for job prosperity.

Don't buy the propaganda that working for free helps!

[CTyankee]

4. Oh, I agree with you on the merits of what you say. And, no, working for free

is NOT the best career course. HOwever, if nothing more you do make contacts that can help you. The thing is, you have to then show your "worth" to the corporation. That's the way our system works. And I have seen unpaid internships turn into paying jobs. Hell, when I was newly retired a few years back I got a part time job at a nonprofit where I had been a volunteer. It was fine and worked out well.

[RandomThoughts]

5. I understand that concept.

However.

I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.

And I am well versed in interview procedure, and as posted before.

When you go into an interview, you explain till they realize you own the company already, if that is there way of viewing existence, and that they need to correct what needs correcting.


I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.

[tblue37]

8. Your principles are sound--but nowadays most big companies won't hire

grads who don't have at least one internship on their resume,

[TheKentuckian]

6. People working for free for private, for profit companies is wage destruction for everyone else.

Plus, that production goes right to the shareholder's pockets and adds to the growing and out of control wealth disparity.

This kind of thing is okay a few hours a week for students but beyond that it becomes an economic blight and I think that the entire practice should be banned, throwing baby out with the bathwater because the benefit is too small to take the damage. Lil Susie will have to compete for a paid entry level position or do something else.

[CTyankee]

7. Until we get our economy out of the hole and actually create more jobs and

opportunities for all workers, this kind of exploitation will go on. I think it is a shame and agree with everything you say. The only answer is a time of boom, when they HAVE to pay you because they NEED you, in order to get the work done. Boom, plus a good strong labor movement in this country, so that people could apprentice and learn the craft or job and still make a living and then progress in their field...it is the only decent way that society should run...

[NNN0LHI]

11. How are more paying jobs going to be created when there are people willing to work for free?

And as for that living with their parents stuff what happens if the parents are going broke too?

Parents supposed to go get a job as greeters at Walmart so the kid can work for some asshole for free?

This isn't going to work.

Believe me on this one.

Don

[Enrique]

3. and corporations are enjoying record profits

i wonder if there's a connection?

[RagAss]

9. We passed Dire Straits years ago...we're in Shits Creek !

[NNN0LHI]

10. When our main export is jobs and bad debt this is what happens

Remind anyone of Greece?

Don

[IDemo]

12. Fair Labor Standards Act on whether you're an employee or trainee:

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has developed the six
factors below to evaluate whether a worker is a trainee or an employee for purposes of
the FLSA:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the
employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic
educational instruction;

2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;

3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close
observation;

4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the
activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually
be impeded;

5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training
period; and

6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to
wages for the time spent in training.

If all of the factors listed above are met, then the worker is a “trainee”, an employment
relationship does not exist under the FLSA, and the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime
provisions do not apply to the worker. Because the FLSA’s definition of “employee” is
broad, the excluded category of “trainee” is necessarily quite narrow. Moreover, the fact
that an employer labels a worker as a trainee and the worker’s activities as training and/or
a state unemployment compensation program develops what it calls a training program
and describes the unemployed workers who participate as trainees does not make the
worker a trainee for purposes of the FLSA unless the six factors are met. Some of the six
factors are discussed in more detail below.

http://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/TEGL/TEGL12-09acc.pdf

[Skidmore]

13. SInce when are internships and traineeships guaranteed

a wage. I've worked paid and unpaid internships. It is nice when they are paid because it offsets the cost of tuition and books a bit. This is nothing new but something that has been standard practice for some years.

As for corporations hiring, I am wondering when Americans are going to look past the corporate model and start creating a business environment that side steps the big boys.