Undergraduate students at UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce at a job fair. Courtesy photo
Almost a quarter of employers have revoked or are planning on revoking internship offers, according to an ongoing study by the National Associate of Colleges and Employers.
“Although employers have been trying to maintain a wait-and-see approach, it appears they are starting to make difficult decisions regarding job offer revocations, adaptations to summer 2020 internships, and expectations for recruiting the Class of 2021,” the NACE survey says.
NACE has been running the survey since April 1 and publishes updated results each Friday. Today’s (May 1) updated results paint a gloomy picture for job seekers. Of the 415 employers that have responded to the survey, 17.8% plan on revoking summer internship offers but not full-time offers. Another 3.9% say they are revoking both internship and full-time offers, bringing the total percentage of those revoking internship offers to 21.7%. Both of those rates have grown substantially since April 10. Another 19% report they are not currently revoking internship offers but are considering it. Just 58.8% of respondents currently say they are not revoking offers.
NACE Survey
PERCENTAGE OF INTERNSHIPS MOVING ONLINE, OR ALTERING IN OTHER WAYS, CONTINUES TO GROW
Of those revoking offers, companies are reporting scaling back their internship hiring by 65.6%. Those revoking full-time offers are cutting those offers at a slightly lower rate of 52.5%, but that only includes 22 companies. The percentage of companies altering internships in different ways continues to increase. With 411 employers reporting by May 1, some 46.2% plan on moving their internships online. That rate is up from 36.4% among 217 respondents on April 10.
Now, 41.1% plan on reducing the length of their internship, again, an increase from April 10 when the rate was 34.6%. Only 16.8% of employers are reporting no changes to their internship programs, down from 29.5% that reported no changes on April 10. And 21.2% report they’re reducing the number of interns that are onboarding for the summer — again, down from 17.5% in April.
“In general, employers are adapting their summer 2020 internship programs by moving as much programming to a virtual space as possible,” the report says. “On April 3, 65% of employers intended to make changes to their internship programs; by April 30, that percentage had grown to 83%.”
NACE Survey
A BIT OF GOOD NEWS
The May report wasn’t all bad news. “The most optimistic piece of data from the April quick poll is that 61% of employers plan to recruit the Class of 2021 at the same level as the Class of 2020,” the report says. “An additional 16% are still undecided.”
While 61.3% of 422 respondents say they plan on recruiting the Class of 2021 like the Class of 2020, that rate has dipped slightly from 65.2% of 233 respondents on April 10. And the percentage that is reporting they’ll decrease recruiting compared to 2020 has ticked up from 12.4% in April to 16.2% on May 1.
However, 5.5% report they will be recruiting the Class of 2021 more compared to 2020, a slight uptick from 4.3% in April.
NACE Survey
DON’T MISS: THE NEW SUMMER INTERNSHIP: VIRTUAL or HOW PwC PLANS TO MOVE 3,500 SUMMER INTERNS ONLINE
