It’s time to end the work experience scam
The Independent’s Johann Hari:
When you get to work today, will your coffee be fetched by an unpaid intern? Have you wrangled a work experience placement for your own child? Does your business rest on this bottom-layer of the unpaid and unmerited? Then you are part of a scam – one that disfigures and damages Britain.
Well written and argued as ever, but not sure I agree. There’s definitely a lot of exploitation of this type going on. But there have been a few occasions in my career when, as an unproven young’un, I was given a chance to hang around some really cool people and get involved in really cool things, and learned a hell of a lot. There was no way the company would have paid anyone just to hang around them making tea like I did! And then when I did prove myself, I was suitably rewarded by those same people.
I guess that was the competitive-and-glamourous (the latter allegedly) music industry though. Sure I would think differently if it was for a dull insurance company and I couldn’t get any foot on the employment ladder without working for free. And of course, the above doesn’t negate Hari’s point about not everyone being able to afford to spend time working for free.
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