Unpaid Internships Are Going Out of Style

The nation's tight labor market is squeezing out unpaid internships, reports the Wall Street Journal . With unemployment at record lows, more companies are paying for workers they used to get for free to ensure a pipeline of young entry-level talent. A National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) survey of 2017 college graduates reported almost 60 percent of respondents had an internship during their school years versus 49 percent in 2007. In 2012, around 50 percent of all internships were unpaid. Since that peak, unpaid internships have steadily declined to 43 percent last year. Unpaid internships have been widely criticized for taking advantage of free labor and catering to students who have the privilege to spend a summer or semester working for free while their parents foot the bill. The U.S. Labor Department this year issued new guidelines stipulating that an internship must provide an experience applicable to the student's education and that their work should not displace the work of a paid employee.