Another day, another fruitless fish-net trawled from the sea of online jobs postings. Along with the floating rubbish that comes with it: unpaid internships. Gah!
They're part of the furniture now in the jobseeker's environment. They can be dressed up as fancy schemes or with decorative language - JobBridge, traineeship, pseudo-slave, whatever - but it's more or less like fishing for junk: you might pull one in for closer inspection, but the majority of the time, it's just what you expected.
It would appear that with the decline of the global economy came the simultaneous decline in the ethics of employment. Yes, it is capitalist at its core for the employer (free labour? Yes please), but for it to be sanctioned - and in the case of JobBridge, paid for - by the government is disappointing, to say the least. The private sector has really had the government bent over a chair with this scheme - apparently without even asking. "So we'll pay for your workforce for a while, but you're probably going to give them a real job and start paying them after a few months, right?", says Gilmore, red in the cheeks, but not in the idealism. "Eh, yeah, sure. We'll sort something out." says the private sector, and then changes the subject.
'Something' turns out to be a reference and a pat on the back six months later, as you scurry out the door - to your next unpaid internship.
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