Quality Internships Part 1: Paying a living wage

The European Youth Forum has a campaign called ‘Quality Internships’ which aims to encourage organisations to sign up to a charter demonstrating their commitment to providing quality internships to individuals.  Amongst the commitments is one to provide a wage which is in accordance with the minimum wage set by that country.  A few weeks ago I spotted an internship advertised with EuroDesk that looked interesting (my MSc is in European Public Policy, so it is an area that I am interested in working in).  Unfortunately the renumeration for the post was only around 700 Euros (approx. £600) per month so it meant I immediately couldn’t apply for it.  Although not as expensive as some other European cities, Brussels is still the headquarters of the European Union, as well as many other large organisations, and the cost of living is quite high.  This level of wage is not uncommon for European internships.  Although not officially signed up to the charter, EuroDesk had ‘liked’ the Quality Internship Charter on Facebook.  This prompted me to email EuroDesk and question why they offered such a low wage if they supported the work that the EYF carried out in promoting quality internships.  The reply I received was that EuroDesk, as a non-profit organisation established under Belgian law, followed the ‘Convention d’immersion professionelle’.

The ‘Convention d’immersion professionelle’ is used by Brussels based organisations when hiring an intern.  Unlike an employment contract, this Convention is not concerned with the provision of services by an employee and subsequent payment for these services, but instead with the training that the intern receives by being ‘immersed’ in the work of the organisation.  The level of ‘compensation’ provided to an intern is set in this Convention – for anyone over 21 (the majority of graduates) this is set at a minimum of 721.80 Euros, though there is nothing to stop organisations paying more.  For comparison the European Youth Forum pays their interns 1441 Euros per month.

The issue with this, as with all unpaid/low paid internships, is that even though it may be legal (which is in dispute in the UK, at the very least), it is not necessarily ethical to pay such a small amount.  There seems to be a disturbing growth in the number of individuals and organisations taking advantage of the high graduate unemployment rate by recruiting unpaid or low paid interns.  John Caudwell, a British billionaire businessman said recently that minimum wage should be lowered to encourage more employers to hire younger staff.  I do wonder if John Caudwell would be able to live off the current minimum wage of £6.08 an hour, never mind less than that.

Furthermore, as I pointed out to EuroDesk, it is not particularly beneficial to them, by depleting drastically the talent pool from which they can recruit.  This position had 545 applicants.  There are certainly other factors which would limit the number applying (namely language skills) but I have applied for many jobs in Scotland, with a population of approximately 5 million, which have had over 250 applicants.  EuroDesk, advertising to the whole of the European Union, with a population 100 times the size of Scotland, managed only slightly more than twice as many applicants.

EuroDesk have been mentioned here because I have had a recent experience with them, but this issue is not limited to them.  Organisations across the UK and wider into Europe, detriment individuals who cannot afford to support themselves while working as an intern, but they also negatively impact themselves by severely limiting who they can recruit from.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that those individuals who can afford to cover the costs of their internship are not the best person for the job, but until we start paying interns a fair wage, we will never know.

Is there too much hypocrisy when it comes to internships?  Organisations, politicians and charities frequently come out against internships or low paid work, but use unpaid/low paid interns themselves.  Do you have examples of where this has happened? 

Comment below or tweet me over @InternSiobhan