College jobs are back – here are the best paying internships

College students looking for summer performances are shocked.

The Covid pandemic, of course, hit this group particularly hard. Last summer, the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds was 18.5%, about twice as high as the year before.

About 47% of young people were employed in July 2020, compared to 56% a year earlier, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (July is usually when youth service reaches a peak.)

At the same time, internship opportunities – paid or unpaid – have almost completely dried up.

“Over the past year, college students and recent graduates have presented unique challenges trying to gain valuable internship experience, with many employers making the difficult decision to interrupt or even strike their jobs,” said Amanda Stansell, an economic data scientist. at Glassdoor, said.

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“Fortunately, the labor market is seeing signs of recovery and providing the opportunity for workers early in their careers to not only find internships at top companies, but also earn a solid salary,” she added.

For a college student looking for paid internships, more companies are actively recruiting, according to a new report from Glassdoor.

Technology companies in particular use internships as a pipeline to hire and that means they offer very competitive salaries, Stansell said. “It’s a great way for companies to attract talent and build their talent pipeline.”

Interns earn the most at chipmaker Nvidia, followed by Facebook and LinkedIn, where the average monthly amount is more than $ 8,000, according to Glassdoor. If these salaries are paid full-time, interns will bring home about $ 100,000 a year, well above the US median salary.

Glassdoor’s report on the highest paid internships for 2021 is based on salary assessments reported internally through March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021.

“One of the silver lining is that many of these internships are still completely remote, opening up the playing field for students across the country,” Stansell said.

While it is very incredibly competitive to achieve one of these opportunities, there are also many more internships available at other businesses, and an increasing number of summer jobs in general.

“We expect an increase in summer jobs for teens,” including once-reliable performances in stores and restaurants, said Vicki Salemi, a professional expert at Monster.com.

Even if the summer positions are not yet immediately available, more jobs will be posted as businesses reopen and employers reevaluate their needs.

“It’s important to keep your eyes and ears open, if you have not landed one yet, it does not mean you are not going.”

In general, however, teens are less likely to look for work, according to a study by the Hamilton Project and Brookings Institution.

This is partly because there are more academic summer programs available and that more teens are completing community service as part of their graduation or to bolster their university applications, except that more students are taking unpaid internships, which the BLS does not count, according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center.

The proportion of teens participating in the workforce peaked 40 years ago and has declined since then.

In 1979, nearly 60% of American teens were employed, a record of all time. Today, just over one-third, or 35%, of teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 are part of the labor force.

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