Compounding the already dire problem of youth unemployment in Korea is the exploitation of interns.

A Ministry of Employment and Labor survey of 151 randomly selected companies in the hotel, fashion, hairdressing and bakery sectors found that 103 companies had hired interns without a contract. Of the 103, 45 companies paid them below minimum wage.

A well-known hotel in Seoul was found to have filled 70 percent of its full-time positions during the summer peak season with interns, paying them 300,000 won a month. While they did the same work as the full-time employees, they worked without a contract because they were interns. This meant the interns were not entitled to proper workers’ rights and protection.

At a fashion house, interns regularly filled in for employees on maternity leave. While they did all the work of the full-time employees they were substituting for, the interns were paid 500,000 won a month during the three-month stints.

Many of the interns were not paid for working overtime or working on holidays. Some employers took off break hours from the hourly wages. The list of exploitations by employers goes on and on.

Such abuses occur because students are eager to gain work experience that will boost their chances of finding positions once they graduate. It is part of padding their resumes. And employees, for their part, are not averse to taking advantage of the situation, paying less than minimum wage for interns who do the work of full-time employees.

Internships are supposed to provide on-site experience for the interns, and the employers can use the system to identify potential future hires. It could be a win-win situation for both sides, but in today’s hypercompetitive job market, it is a win for the employers only who gain access to cheap and eager labor. The Labor Ministry said it would draw up a guideline for internships in the latter half of the year -– it should ensure that the guideline is realistic and strictly enforced.