POLITICS:By the time they are attractive to employers, many graduates are over 30 years of age, writes Derek Scally.

Kerstin Becker didn't ask to be part of the "Intern Generation". After completing her design studies in Weimar, Germany, last year, the 31-year-old hoped to find a job in the fashion industry. Today, she's working in a Düsseldorf design company - not as an employee, but as an intern earning €400 a month. Her parents give her an extra €600 to help out.

"Without that money, I'd be out on the street," she told Der Spiegel magazine as part of its recent investigation of the "Intern Generation".

By now it's a familiar story of bright-eyed graduates exploited by companies for a few months being paid next to nothing, if anything at all, and thrown out on the street. With demand for placements exceeding supply, companies have no incentive to offer their interns permanent positions.

The phenomenon is portrayed as a side-effect of Germany's recent economic downturn, radical changes in labour market regulation and, of course, globalisation.

"It's a paradox," commented Der Spiegel. "On the one hand, young people have geared themselves up far more for international life: they speak languages and have travelled. On the other hand, through the forces of globalisation, the employment prospects of these young people have radically changed."

But beyond the Intern Generation lies another reality, where employers complain that they cannot find suitable employees to fill their vacant positions.

At the moment, 1.5 million jobs are vacant in Germany - not just low-paid, unattractive positions but also executive and engineering positions. So what is keeping the Intern Generation out of work? A representative survey into the question by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) found that 92 per cent of German employers found graduates lacking either social or personal competences needed for working life.

Of employers who had recently hired and then fired a graduate, 29 per cent said it was because of the graduate's inability to transfer theory into practice; a quarter said it was because the graduate "overestimated themselves and their abilities".

"There remains a widespread expectation among German students that an academic degree is enough for success," said Kolja Briedis, analyst for educational and employment policy at the University Information Systems (HIS) consultants.

"Many university faculties are not interested in educating for the world beyond the academic one," says Briedis. "They simply do not train their students that, in the real world, it's as much about what you can do as what you know."

He suggests the Intern Generation phenomenon is a response to the shortcomings of a university system that produces overqualified but inexperienced graduates with an average age of 27.

Once out on the street, a study by Globallife consultants found that German graduates can spend up to five years doing internships and short-term jobs to boost their practical skills and, hopefully, make them more employable.

By the time they are attractive to employers, many graduates are over 30; those with postgraduate degrees are even older.

And though many have first-hand experiences of the harsh realities of the modern labour market, many still hanker after the working conditions of their parents' generation: an iron-clad contract, a job for life and early retirement.

"They see limited contracts as abnormal, something that puts them in a precarious life position even if it's the norm elsewhere in Europe and now in Germany," says Berit Heintz, head of the education policy department at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK).

The decline in iron-clad contracts is not new in Germany: back in 1968, over 75 per cent of employees had them, today it's 60 per cent. At the start of the 1990s, one in five jobs was offered on the basis of a limited contract; these days it's every second hire. Of 22,000 graduates surveyed by Der Spiegel magazine, just a third said their contract was unlimited.

Yet much of the coverage of the Intern Generation assumes that those who sign limited contracts are just one step from the dole queue or - horror - another internship.

The coverage also suggests that the Intern Generation is a widespread phenomenon. But a study for University Information Systems (HIS) consultants suggests this is not the case and that internship practices vary drastically depending on the field studied. While one of four graduates of cultural studies and languages do one or more internships after graduating, engineering graduates generally go straight into jobs.

Two-thirds of interns quizzed by HIS said they were very happy with their internship. The study reports, too, that the most intensive use (and abuse) of interns comes from cultural institutions and the media.

"The Intern Generation is far from the widespread phenomenon presented in the newspapers," says Heintz. "The phenomenon is limited to the media industry and other creative sectors like architecture where work is on a project-by-project basis."