The headline was chilling to firms and families alike: “Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say.”

In a market offering fewer opportunities for high school and college-age students to acquire life skills once developed as part of a summer job experience, internships have become a significant source of experience and an important part of the launch process for the next generation. But abused by some employers who overuse kids as free summer labor, many companies will become wary of government oversight and may back away from offering internships altogether.

This will be bad for kids—and for companies. Young people will have fewer opportunities to observe and experience the culture of a variety of workplaces, and companies will have fewer low risk ways to vet potential employees.

But there’ s no cause to panic, for either intentional families or good companies. This is an easy—and an important—challenge to manage. The U.S. Department of Labor published [PDF] six criteria for determining if an internship is legitimate or just a thinly disguised means of getting free labor. And the internships we’ve been involved with at IMI meet all these requirements without a stretch.They are:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational institution. This means that the internship setting must treat the intern as a trainee and provide actual instruction. This is what you want anyway. Young people should be able to observe and try activities that are part of a real learning plan.  The student can work with employers to create such a plan (much like an independent learning project). Companies can design these as well.
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees—or intern. While companies certainly benefit from having a chance to observe potential future employees, MOST legitimate internships are too time consuming and expensive to be of much help to the intern host. Free labor is a lot less ‘free’ than most people understand but when the terms of the internship are explicit, this aspect of the criteria is easier to meet.
3. The trainees (interns) do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation. Since most internships we’ve been involved with only last from two to eight weeks, there is little danger interns are displacing real employees. But this is a workplace accountability issue and one that can be clarified at the start of the internship.
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded. Indeed, most internships are done as an act of generosity on the part of the employer. Hosting an intern takes up valuable time and resources. Because an intern can hardly understand the environment in less than three months, let alone make a meaningful contribution to the workplace, employers are making an investment in the future when they offer an internship, not gaining immediate advantage.
5. Trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period. Particularly if an intern is still in school, this is not immediately relevant. But IF the intern goes back to school, or on to another internship and later returns to apply for a job independently, there is no foul.
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training. This is the easy one as most internships are established as free experiences. In some cases the family pays a third party or the employer for young people to gain exposure to industries, professions, and environments they have some interest in or curiosity about.

Internships are vital as vehicles for helping the next generation integrate into the social network of an entrepreneurial culture. Giving kids access to role models, specialized language, and industry knowledge is key to helping them launch into adulthood. Now is not the time to panic. It’s time for next gen members and their families to plan and propose an internship for the summer experience of choice.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor “ADVISORY: TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT GUIDANCE LETTER NO. 12-09”

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