"Interns Don't Deserve Pay" – Company Claims Interns Should Pay Them To Learn New Skills
You thought unpaid internships were bad? Imagine PAYING companies to intern.
By Kay Ng — 05 Jan 2023, 06:03 PM
You thought unpaid internships were bad?
An anonymous Facebook user recently posted their WhatsApp conversation with a potential employer who claimed that interns ought to pay companies for training them.
The screenshot was posted on the Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) Confessions page, with the potential employer sharing that their company does not pay interns.
"We don't pay salary for internship. Internship is for you to learn," they stated, implying that an intern should be compensated through the skills they learn on the job alone.
"By right, intern students should pay the company for teaching them the job."
They go on to claim that companies that do pay interns merely want cheap labour, as opposed to imparting useful job skills on them.
"So, [do] you want the knowledge or [do] you want [the] money?"
Netizens chimed in with their own opinions and experiences about unpaid internships
One person stated that despite learning on the job, interns still do viable work and should be duly compensated for it.
Another user exposed the hypocrisy in the employer's statement.
A user had the opinion that unpaid internships should be banned as interns also have expenses to cover, and thus should not be treated as slaves.
Another user shared their experience of being exploited by an employer, who also reasoned that she should not be financially compensated during her "training period".
