How Many Interns Are There Per Year?

With more than 905,000 jobs (78% of which are of permanent employees), hotels and restaurants do not seem affected by the crisis, since they are projected to create 56,000 jobs in 2016.

It is impossible at the present time to quantify accurately the number of interns in France. They are not listed by the Ministry of Higher Education, are not registered at Urssaf, and do not appear in the single registry of business personnel.

However, thanks to several surveys conducted since 2006, we know growth margins from year to year. In 2006, there were about 800,000 interns. In 2010 , they increased to 1.2 million and, based upon our latest estimates, will increase to 1.5 million in 2011. Since the 2008 crisis, we can say that the number of interns has doubled. We also see an explosion in demand, especially a high increase in ads seeking “urgent” interns. Most of the internships are offered in summer, during school holidays; this is how the majority of trainings are organized. But It is also difficult to account accurately for the number of interns, even though all interns are required to complete an internship agreement signed by the company and their training institute.

On the corporate side, only big companies communicate in regards to the number of interns, as they are often required to include them in their annual report. It is by going through the social audit report of the Société générale that it was discovered that 21% of the bank’s employees were interns.

However, there is no single record of all issued conventions. Universities categorically refuse to communicate about the matter and, in some cases, they refuse even to send their statistics to the Ministry of Higher Education. Moreover, there is no follow-up done in private schools, which provide companies with a large number of interns – particularly multiple schools of business, communication, marketing, and journalism too!

Many institutions provide cash-for internship agreements in the form of training called “enhancement and professionalization.” Basically, you pay thousands of euros to enroll in the university for the sole purpose of doing internships.

Are internship opportunities seasonal?

For practical reasons and in busy periods, students are often sent in ski resorts in winter, and on the coast in summer. Obviously, this distribution is not fixed. The student’s assignment will depend on partnerships signed between the training and education institutions, based upon availability and on the student’s level.

What is the salary of an intern at a gourmet restaurant?

Because of his intern status, the student is not entitled to a salary, but a very specific calculated incentive:

• If the gratuity received does not exceed the threshold of 12.5 % of the social security ceiling multiplied by the number of hours worked, the gratuity is exempt from employer and employee contributions.
• If the gratuity exceeds the threshold of the social security ceiling, the employer and employee contributions will be counted only from the portion exceeding the threshold.

The minimum gratification that a student shall receive for a full-time schedule (35 hours per week) is € 550 per month.

Note that in France an intern is paid only if the internship is longer than two months and one day.