National Minimum Wage

Chapter 3: Young People, Interns and Apprentices
3.48 The Government drew attention to its Strategy for Social Mobility launched in April 2011
(HM Government, 2011), aimed at promoting greater social mobility. It recognised the
important role internships play in the youth labour market and explained that as a result,
and in order to promote fair access to jobs, internships needed to be opened up to all
young people. The Government has called on businesses to offer internships openly and
transparently and to provide financial support to ensure fair access. It is also reforming the
way internships are offered in Whitehall, with a new scheme extending the programme to
attract talented people from under-represented groups. The Government has in addition
supported internships in other ways, such as the continued funding of the GTP website
as a free internships vacancy matching service for employers and recent graduates.
3.49 We again received views from stakeholders on the impact of unpaid internships on the youth
labour market. Inspiring Interns, an internship recruitment agency, believed that while it was
desirable for internships to be paid there would be a number of negative implications if the
NMW was forcibly applied to every placement: it believed these included some companies
stopping internship programmes or shortening periods of work experience. In its view this
would have a negative effect on social mobility. It thought that as a minimum, expenses
should be met or a training wage paid, and that the Commission should distinguish between
genuine internships and circumstances where employers used the label to disguise
underpaid worker positions.
3.50 The majority of submissions we received, however, thought that failure to pay the NMW
would have a negative impact on social mobility. The National Union of Journalists said this
restricted access to journalism to those who could afford to work for free, and said fewer
than 10 per cent of those entering journalism came from a working class background. Often
interns were, in its experience, doing a full-time job for many months, with no guarantee of
a post at the end. CIPD said that in order to ensure fair access to internships employers
needed to pay interns the NMW as a minimum standard. It reminded us that its past surveys
found most employers already did so. It said growing numbers of employers realised that
they needed to recruit from the widest possible pool if they were to compete in the tough
economic environment, and unless they paid a proper wage were likely to miss out on talent.
3.51 Creative and Cultural Skills (CCS) and the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and
Theatre Union expressed concerns over the impact of unpaid internships and other work
experience on diversity. CCS noted that social mobility and diversity were being stifled in its
sector by the growth in unpaid internships, lack of transparency in job advertisements, and
requirements for degrees in advertisements for non-graduate roles. Women made up only
40 per cent of the sector workforce and were likely to be paid less than men. Ninety-one per
cent of all workers in the creative and cultural industries were white, and in London this
figure stood at 86 per cent, a figure which it said was unrepresentative of the make-up of the
inner city.
87