Levels of young people unemployed are now at a level not seen since the last recession, according to Sky News. In February of this year, the Local Government Association published a report warning that the UK risks a ‘lost generation’ of young people whose careers have been affected by the recession.

We know from previous recessions that groups most at risk of joining the long-term unemployed are the middle aged and young people – LGA

Not only are young people at a high risk of joining the long-term unemployed, it seems they are also at risk of being exploited by various companies, particularly in the journalism industry. In fact, as I spend my days sifting through the jobs listed on websites such as Monster, Gumtree, Reed and the Jobsite, I am certain that more and more unpaid internships are being offered for graduates. It might be cynical of me to say so but I believe that these unpaid internships (where you get travel expenses and lunch paid if you’re lucky) are often positions that before the recession would have actually paid a salary.

We all know that companies are striving to become more cost-effective in the face of the recession by cutting back on recruitment, but is it moral for so many companies to offer unpaid roles to graduates in roles that might have normally been a paid position? There is a growing wave of blogs and websites set up in the name of standing up for the rights of student and graduate interns, for example Interns Anonymous and Unfair Internships.

At the time of writing this article, Unfair Internships features a post which brings to the forefront a very big issue for interns. When applying for internships during a recession, they are not only competing against fellow graduates and students, but more experienced professionals who have been made redundant and are offering themselves for an internship.

Picture this; a manager is faced with choosing an inexperienced graduate or someone who is offering their experience in the industry for free, it is not hard to understand why they would ignore the applications of younger people. So what can a young person do when even the Plan B of taking an internship over a paid job ceases to be as easy as one would hope?

The government is well aware of this growing army of struggling young people who cannot get jobs or training and instead have to rely on the dole to survive. From March 2010, all 18 to 24-year-olds who have been on jobseeker’s allowance for a year will be guaranteed a job, training or a work placement. For the time being, there is a new initiative for 2008 and 2009 graduates, named the Graduate Talent Pool. Let’s hope that some of these internships lead to full-time jobs for graduates and not just back to square one.

Recent articles about unemployment in young people.

+ The Guardian shares the views of unemployed young people in Bristol.

+ Telegraph warns that one in three young people are unemployed.

+ Totally Money on the Government’s Backing Young Britain campaign.