Students miss out on top jobs if they won’t work for free

SOARING numbers of young people are being forced into unpaid internships to access Britain’s most competitive jobs, research has shown.

The decline in opportunities for graduates to enter high- skilled work has led to unpaid placements becoming a ‘must have’ for top professions.

The Institute for Public Policy Research attacked internships as a ‘cheap form of labour’ and warned positions are inaccessible to those lacking connections and cash. It has called for an end to internships that are ‘unregulated, of variable quality and restricted to a privileged few’, as well as a ban on unpaid placements lasting more than four weeks.

The IPPR report says that the number of internships offered by top graduate recruiters has risen by nearly 50 per cent since 2010.

Around half of these employers say that candidates without this form of work experience ‘have little or no chance of receiving a job offer’, according to the research.

Focus groups conducted with graduates revealed that ‘discrimination and low confidence in navigating opaque recruitment practices’ can prevent young people from less privileged backgrounds from securing an internship.

The report, The Inbetweeners: The new role of internships in the graduate labour market, says internships ‘act as a barrier to social mobility’ that has become a ‘permanent feature of the graduate labour market’.

Each year 11,000 internships are advertised – but the true number is estimated to be as high as 70,000 per year, according to the report. Around one in five of the placements is believed to be unpaid.

The news comes as the proportion of graduates in high- skill occupations is in decline. In 2008, 61 per cent of graduates aged 21 to 30 were employed in such posts, while today the figure is just 56 per cent.

The IPPR says that an ‘oversupply of graduates effectively means that recruiters can more easily attract graduates to work for free or in lowpaid, insecure work’.

Carys Roberts of the IPPR said there has been an ‘unstoppable rise in internships since the last recession’. She added: ‘Internships are too often restricted to a privileged few.’

Alan Milburn, chairman of the Social Mobility Commission, said internships are the ‘new first rung on the professional ladder’. He said: ‘Restricted access to internships is bad for interns, business, the economy and acts as a major barrier to social mobility.’

‘Restricted to a privileged few’