Think that you have it hard, with your internship forcing you to work eight-hour days making coffee for minimum wage? Well, a WSJ report might make you feel a little better: Chinese factories are relying on cheap intern labour to keep the manufacturing dream alive.
Chinese tech factories have long been under fire for atrocious worker conditions, but a recent WSJ report claims that China has been ripping off another American worker practice: using free intern labour. The WSJ highlights a few particularly bad instances, like Pegatron, a manufacturer for Asus and Toshiba, which has a workforce of 30 per cent interns.
Unlike previous allegations of worker abuse, firms are actually defending this one. Pegatron’s Chongqing factory director, E.K. Liao, defended the program as ‘educational’ and a benefit to the city as a whole. Whoever’s side you believe, it would seem that Chinese manufacturing still isn’t as squeaky-clean as some companies would have you believe. [WSJ]