Post-Graduation Internship between Exploitation and Training: A Research on the Italian Experience

The research is an analysis about conditions and regulatory forms of internship, providing empirical evidence on the case of postgraduate internships carried out in Italy in the last two years, trying to assess the quality of the learning environment where the interns worked and the effectiveness of internship in guiding and promoting the employability of graduates. The study is based on the results collected through a sample of graduates between 2011 and 2012 (N = 1154) using the CAWI method. First, data highlight how interns are in a condition of “role ambiguity” in which there is a clear contrast about the clearness of information and conditions in which they operate and the expectations of bosses and colleagues about the tasks to be performed. Nevertheless, interns do not get adequate training input, they remain confined to limited aspects of their job and they do not got an overall knowledge of business activities, that in some way could limit their operational capacity and understanding of the “production” processes in the company. More problematic, however, is the impact of internship on employability. The weak capability of post graduate internship to promote employability has to be contextualized considering the peculiarities of the local labor market of a South-European country, mostly characterized by micro- entrepreneurship, family business, above all in the service sector with low added value and with a high tendency to use informal work.