Unpaid interns. Are employers exploiting or training young people?

Interns Australia speaks to Natasha Mitchell and Professor Rosemary Owens this morning on ABC RN's Life Matters.

Interns Australia wants a government response or program to tackle the growing issue which has also plagued other countries.

A media company run by prominent broadcaster and businessman Craig Hutchison has been penalised for illegally exploiting young workers.

Interns Australia, which lobbies for the fair treatment of interns, said the ruling was an important step in ensuring greater protections for young and vulnerable job-seekers.

"Organisations are taking a risk if they are taking people on outside of formal education courses, doing the kind of work that an employee would have to do." according to Professor Andrew Stewart from the University of Adelaide.

A group of Adelaide Law School researchers have been awarded a major grant by the Australian Research Council to study the regulation of internships and other work experience arrangements.

In an environment where youth unemployment is close to 20% in some states, it’s not surprising that those who choose a path of an internship to gain experience end up bitter, and often without the professional employment they were seeking at the end.

Born into a bizarro world controlled by baby boomers who have comprehensively shafted us, it’s a credit to our resilience and adaptability that we’ve managed to get this far at all

Unpaid internships could be excluding jobseekers from less well-off backgrounds who do not have the luxury of working for free, according to a study.

The owner of a collapsed Melbourne marketing company, Naomi-Jayne Aldred, will face court over allegations she did not pay two interns for three months of casual work.

Young people need better protection from exploitation in the workplace through tighter regulation of unpaid internships, a NSW parliamentary inquiry has heard.