The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reports that in their 2009 Experiential Education Survey, projected internship hiring fell nearly 21 percent.
Company reps cited budget cuts, decreased workloads, and company downsizing and restructuring as among the top reasons for bringing in 20.7 percent fewer interns this year than last year.
“The drop-off in internship opportunities mirrors what we’re seeing in terms of full-time hiring for new college graduates,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
Many employers polled in the same study also said that they do not intend to eliminate their internship programs; rather, they will be reduced, since the same employers said that more than one-third of the new college graduates they hired last year came from these programs.
The report also showed that employers intend to increase the salaries for their interns by 4.9 percent.
“Nearly all of the organizations that took part in our survey pay their interns, and the increase is perhaps another indication of the value employers see in these programs,” says Mackes.
The survey polled 318 members of NACE. By sector, 43.4 percent of respondents represent manufacturing organizations, 50.9 percent are service organizations, 4.4 percent are government agencies, and 1.3 percent are nonprofit employers. By region of the country, 31.1 percent are from the Midwest, 31.1 percent are from the South, 23 percent are from the Northeast, and 14.8 percent are from the West.
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March 19th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Two thoughts here:
Interns should be really cheap labor, and the idea that companies are cutting some of their cheapest heads is interesting to me. This points to the idea that many companies think of internship programs as part of the recruiting funnel more than they think of interns as being able to complete actual work.
When I interned in college, I was doing work that, after some handholding, MBAs would otherwise be doing. Everyone I know says that, because of layoffs, they’re now doing the work of two people. You’d think a few min/low wage interns around would be a great way for companies to get what they need to get done w/o hiring a fulltimer with benefits.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:53 am
There is a ton of student talent out there and the smart companies (mostly nimble startups and progressive large companies) are going to be rewarded when they continue to hire interns. Interns don’t have to be a long term investment and their ROI (when done well) can be game-changing. Take a look at what Fog Creek Software does: http://fogcreek.com/Jobs/SummerIntern.html
March 20th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
What frustrates me, as a recent college graduate, is that you need experience to get experience, even for unpaid internships! It’s such a catch 22. Even with the experience that I have, I can’t get a paying job, but I can’t afford to live off nothing in order to “gain more experience” to get a real job. So where does that leave people like me? Stuck working crappy admin jobs just to pay the rent and bills and not being in my chosen field. I even seen UNPAID internships asking for people who have 2-3 years of experience in a certain field…isn’t that normally a position that should be paid? It’s unfortunate that I graduated from college in bad economic times and that by the time the economy does pick up, companies are going to be hiring the newer college grads and not me, the person doing low level admin work just to get paid.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
As an undergraduate at San Jose State University and an intern at CKR Interactive, I know how hard it is to obtain even a non-paid internship in any field of work. To me, it is sad that many companies cannot invest their time to train and provide opportunities to undergraduates, who will soon be the leading force in their industry. Without “real-world” opportunities, it will be difficult to find qualified individuals that deserved to be paid for the work they do, and it will also be detrimental to the industries where there is no real training available. I am happy to have been hired as an intern at CKR Interactive and learn about my trade.