Internocracy and unpaid interns

By Raj Cheema

Great to see Internocracy in the Guardian today talking about the unfairness of unpaid interns - backed by its latest research. The research, carried out by YouGov on behalf of Internocracy – a social enterprise that develops work experience schemes for employers – found that 17% of UK businesses had taken on interns to use as a cheap source of labour, while 95% of the 218 UK managers who responded agreed that interns were "useful to their organisation".

The Internocracy study also found that only 12% of company managers and 10% of young people knew unpaid internships could be illegal under employment law. Internocracy attended our Beyond Worklessness: A Festival of Ideas event last year and spoke about their 'Proper Jobs Clubs' programme of work which aims to set up clubs for unemployed young people to vent their frustrations and anxieties and get advice, information and guidance from their peers who have successfully obtained employement or set up their own businesses. If you want to learn more about this work, then check out the video below.