The Unpaid Internship Economy

Internships can be valuable when they create genuine learning. They become problematic when organisations rely on unpaid academic labour to get work done while offering little supervision, support or learning.

An experience letter does not pay rent. Nor does a line on a CV erase the value of someone's time. Young people entering the sector are especially vulnerable because they are told experience is the price of admission.

If organisations care about equity, they should think about who can afford to work for free. An unpaid opportunity is not equally accessible to everyone.