These 9 Industries Pay Interns the Most Money
Written by
Selena Fragassi
Edited by
Nicholas Morine
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A long career journey usually starts with the small but very important step of landing an internship. From gaining exposure to developing professional skills — as well as benefiting from mentoring and networking potential — an internship provides “invaluable” experience, per Forbes.
In fact, Zippia found that about 1.2 million people are currently engaged in an internship, and Chegg Internships claims that 70% of those in internships land a permanent job with their employer after the “trial” wraps.
But the truth is, not all internships are created — or pay — equally.
Lending provider CashNetUSA recently set out to see how internship compensation varies from field to field and state to state, and their results show the wide range that exists — in fact, organizations in some states are reluctant to pay interns at all. To gather the data for their study, CashNetUSA looked into 50,000 roles in more than 100 different industries.
They found these nine industries pay the most for interns:
- Technology (average hourly rate: $19.77).
- Finance (average hourly rate: $18.10).
- Professional (average hourly rate: $17.91).
- Manufacturing (average hourly rate: $17.01).
- Health care (average hourly rate: $16.61).
- Retail (average hourly rate: $16.39).
- Media (average hourly rate: $15.90).
- Education (average hourly rate: $15.60).
- Government (average hourly rate: $14.56).
Yet, interestingly enough, CashNetUSA’s report also found that many of the same industries also have the highest percentage of unpaid interns — with finance and retail sectors leading the way at 30.67% and 18.8%, respectively.
Other unique findings in the report include the highest intern pay per state — with Washington, California and Connecticut coming in on top, averaging around $20.92, $20.78 and $20.39 in average hourly wages for interns, respectively. On a down note, Delaware is the state most frequently hosting unpaid internships, as reports suggested 33.5% of all internships were unpaid within its borders.
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