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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Nadia Khomami Arts and culture correspondent

Arts sector’s use of unpaid interns for some roles could be illegal, experts say

Arts internships and the law: illustration
One consultant described ‘a two-tier system where you can either afford to do an unpaid internship and have a career in the arts or you can’t’. Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images

Arts employers could be breaking the law by relying on unpaid interns to perform roles that should be left to paid workers, preventing young people from working-class backgrounds from gaining a foothold, experts have said.

Institutions are getting away with exploiting carve-outs in employment legislation to keep interns working for free, they said, which stops working-class people from finding paid work in the industry.

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