Report shows over half of young Aussies work without pay

Most young Australians participate in unpaid work experience at some point, but a new report released Wednesday reveals those from a lower socio-economic background have far less opportunities than their more wealthy counterparts.

A landmark study commissioned by Australia's Employment Department examined those who had participated in unpaid work in the past five years, but stopped short of including volunteer work.

The figures show that over 58 percent of people aged 18-29 had done some form of unpaid work, with 63 percent being from a higher socio-economic status, as opposed to only 53 percent from disadvantaged backgrounds.

One of the authors of the report, Dr Damien Oliver, of the University of Technology in Sydney, told Xinhua on Wednesday that organisations need to "play their part" in helping those from low socio-economic backgrounds have access to workplace opportunities.

"Universities need to do what they can to provide paid placements, as well as unpaid placements, to their students and graduates...assisting them to find helpful workplace experience," Oliver said.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), one of the other authors of the report and Adelaide University Law Professor, Andrew Stewart, was quick to point out the logic of the pitfalls of asking an employee to work without pay.

"If it's not OK for somebody to agree to take 50 cents an hour less than the minimum wage for their particular job, why should it be OK for them to agree to take nothing?" Stewart said at the time.

But Oliver insists there is a good case to be made for unpaid work in many situations, and said when unpaid employees are providing productive work for the company, the situation should be reassessed.

"In those cases it would make good sense to pay that intern or unpaid work experience participant a training wage, or the minimum wage, whatever might get worked out, in what is a fairly complicated regulatory space," Oliver said.

The report did find however, that more than two-thirds of those surveyed has a positive experience when undertaking unpaid work, with 27 percent of those surveyed being offered a paid role at the conclusion of their work experience.

"Our study showed that unpaid work experience is viewed very positively by those who took part, and certainly they think it has helped to improve their employment prospect in the labor market," Oliver said.

The report comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is set to announce his Prepare-Trial-Hire (PaTH) program on April 1, aimed at helping those under the age of 25 secure internships, with a small financial supplement provided to them by the government. Endit