Being a Millennia
I don’t want to be a “Millennial.” Of course, I don’t want to be called a “Millennial” either, but that’s not the point.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. The job market is abysmal, the price of college is staggering, and unpaid labor is the norm. While some “Millennials” do find work, some internships do pay off, and college is still a solid investment from a cost/benefit analysis, on a macro level, there is an extreme disparity between college graduates ten years ago and today.
Of course, other generations have had it worse. My grandfather lost his family farm during the depression, fought in the war, and supported his four children working as a carpenter.
My father graduated college before Wikipedia.
I’m not sure who had it harder.
And given that perspective it seems just whiney to complain about how things are now. It might be.
But the financial implications of entering the job market, or trying to enter the job market, after 2008 is daunting.
The Annie E. Casey foundation reported that youth unemployment was at its highest level since World War II. 6.5 million people 16-24 are out of work and not pursuing any further education. That’s bad.
The Wall Street Journal reported that 284,000 college graduates are working minimum wage jobs, and wrote that the trend may not reverse itself even after the economy improved. That’s frightening.
The internship is often extolled as the best way to find employment. Depending on the industry, they often don’t pay. Worse yet, internships are offered for college credit, and of course, the universities charge for the privilege. What started out as an informal introduction to professional life has now morphed into a cash cow for employers of all sorts. Internships are big business; just not for the interns.
The internship goes back to the middle ages when apprentices would learn a trade from a skilled master. That paradigm is the dynamic an internship should take. A young man would learn a trade. He wouldn’t be paid, but after a period of years, he would be able to start a career. Time magazine traced the history of the word ‘intern” back to the medical field, where a medical school graduate would spend additional time learning how to practice under extra supervision. Again, it was about learning the trade.
The institution as we know it took shape largely in the 1980’s. They were used as a recruiting tool largely for business students. Eventually they started getting more and more popular, and they started being abused. The department of labor set out these requirements for unpaid internships:
- The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
- The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
- The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
- The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
- The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
- The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.
But these rules are largely ignored, and it has become common place to expect interns to put in far more time than they were hired to work.
Take for example, the class action lawsuit against Charlie Rose. The PBS broadcaster’s show is one of the most serious news programs on television today. He is known for well prepared, well researched interviews, and apparently, Charlie Rose was brought to you in part by: an army of unpaid interns. In December, he settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of 189 interns for $250,000. They would be paid minimum wage, for the hours they were hired to fulfill. Rose clearly derived an immediate advantage from their work.
He certainly is not the only employer guilty of abusing the internships.
I New York law office, which the International Business Times called an “Intern Mill” is currently being sued because they had their interns do work like stuffing envelopes and cleaning the office, clearly beyond what could be conceived as “educational.” Media giants Fox and Hearst publishing are both being sued for abusing the system.
And there has been some backlash. The “put in your dues” caucus argues that these suits will discourage companies from taking on interns, or that even doing the most menial tasks is “educational.” Granted, a wood worker would have to sweep his shop at the end of the day in the eleventh century. But telling aspiring lawyers to do the same work falls way beyond the spirit and purpose of internships.
Given how recent internships are as an institution, it seems ridiculous to argue that young men and women need to subject themselves to free labor to “put in their dues.”
And while internships are extremely problematic, they are a symptom of a much larger issue for people between the ages of 16-25: fear.
This generation is, by and large, terrified. Most of us don’t even realize it. Columbine was in around the time we first entered school. September 11th shortly thereafter. Both rocked everybody’s sense of safety, but for a child during that time, it was especially unsettling.
When the global recession hit, it was just one more thing to be worried about. But that worry isn’t just about not being able to find a job, or moving back home, even though roughly half of all college graduates are unemployed after a year, and more than half of people under 25 have moved back home. But the recession should worry people my age because our wages might never recover. Starting at a lower salary means that just because the economy rebounds, your wages won’t catch up. Chances are we’ll never have the opportunity to make as much as our parents did, and that’s just for the lucky few who found employment.
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