According to the New York Times, the number of job openings available to young people have gone down over recent years. Yet, at the same time, the number of unpaid internships has gone up. As such, many federal and state regulators are beginning to question whether or not employers are simply using interns as a means of obtaining free labor.

Due to their concerns regarding the potential abuse of unpaid internships, many states have launched investigations and have even started to fine employers. Some of these states include Oregon, California and New York, the last of which has already launched investigations into numerous firms. Now, with New York’s former labor commissioner M. Patricia Smith advancing to become the top law enforcement official for the federal Labor Department, the investigation has now advanced to the federal level.

According to many regulators, unpaid internship violations are widespread throughout the country, but enforcing laws against them can be difficult because interns are too afraid to file complaints because they are afraid of being labeled as a troublemaker within their fields. Furthermore, they are afraid to rock the boat with the companies they are working for because they hope to some day land a job with that company. In response, the Labor Department is working toward cracking down on these firms while also expanding the efforts they are making to educate colleges, companies and students regarding internship laws.

“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, who is the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division, in the article.

According to Leppink, many employers are not paying their interns, despite the fact that their internship programs are not in compliance with the six federal criteria that must be met in order to legally have an unpaid internship in place. These criteria include creating an internship that is similar to the type of training that would be provided through an academic institution. In addition, the intern cannot be displacing a regularly paid worker and the employer can not enjoy an “immediate advantage” from the internship.

Although there aren’t any official records kept regarding how many paid and unpaid internships take place each year, many experts are convinced that the number of unpaid internships is growing. The turbulent economic times have only fueled the problem as employers try to hold down costs and students have become even more eager to prove their worth through an internship. In fact, according to Lance Choy, who is the director of the Career Development Center at Stanford University, employers posted 643 unpaid internships on the schools job board last year. These figures are more than triple that which were posted two years before.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers has seen similar results. In 2008, they found that 83% of graduating students held internships. In 1992, only 9% held internships. Many experts estimate that one-fourth to one-half of these internships were unpaid. In an effort to put an end to this practice, officials in California have issued letters to employers that are intended to help them determine whether or not they are breaking the law. In Oregon, officials have identified numerous employers who are breaking the law and have ordered companies to provide unpaid interns with back pay for the internships they completed.

“We’ve had cases where unpaid interns really were displacing workers and where they weren’t being supervised in an educational capacity,” said Bob Estabrook, who is a spokesman for the labor department in Oregon.

While digging deeper into the problem, officials have found many interns who were involved in noneducational menial work. One student, for example, reports that she spent all of her time packaging and shipping apparel samples back to the fashion houses that had provided them for fashion shoots while working as an intern at a magazine. Another student who hoped to learn more about animation while interning at a film company found herself wiping the door handles throughout the building in order to minimize the spread of swine flu. While it isn’t uncommon for interns to engage in some unskilled work, they should not be spending all of their time engaging in this type of labor.

Aside from the fact that unpaid internships are generally illegal, many are also concerned that these internships are unfair to low-income students. After all, low-income students are not financially able to take on these unpaid positions while still taking care of their other responsibilities. As a result, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to landing a job after graduation.

“Some of my friends can’t take these internships and spend a summer without making any money because they have to help pay for their own tuition or help their families with finances,” said Brittany Berckes, who worked as an unpaid intern at a cable news station for a summer. “That makes them less competitive candidates for jobs after graduation.”