A large company in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, has hired up to 1,200 interns, which surpasses its number of full-time employees. It has become a well-known "secret" that some big companies are using cheap labor, such as interns, to reduce their rising labor costs, says an article in China Youth Daily. Excerpts:

It should be a win-win situation for students to work as interns in companies to get work experience and become familiar with the work environment. The company benefits from the internship because it does not have to sign a labor contract, so do the schools, as they can save on teaching resources and earn a middleman's fee. The students are the only party whose interests get hurt.

Interns have become cheap labor. Though higher vocational colleges have advocated combining learning with working, there is no specific proposal of how this should be implemented. Meanwhile, labor supervision departments find it hard to supervise internships due to the lack of a legal foundation.

While the rights of migrant workers have received continuous attention, the rights of interns should also be given due concern. If we tolerate such malpractice, depriving students of their basic rights, it will result in irremediable losses to the healthy development of China's economy and society.