Topic: Department of Labor issues guidance on pay for the unpaid interns.

[amndacatr]

The United States Department of Labor recently had something interesting to provide to help for-profit employers determine whether interns must be paid minimum wage and overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It stated that there are certain criteria that should be examined if you have to decide on this factor.

1. The internship is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment.
2. The experience is for the benefit of the intern.
3. The intern does not displace regular employees and works under close supervision of existing staff.
4. The employer derives no immediate advantage from the intern?s activities and, on occasion, its operations may actually be impeded.
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the end of the internship.
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

The new law states that an employment relationship exists only if none of these factors are met, and the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act apply to the intern. These rules are especially applicable to those employers who seek to hire summer interns to see to it that they are compensated accordingly.