Unemployment is up, and job openings are down. But there is one sector where hiring is on the upswing -- the hiring of interns. And within many companies, the roles and responsibilities of interns are expanding. There are certainly pros for the interns and the companies alike: the interns get needed on-the-job experience, and the companies get eager (and often free) assistance. There are many strong and well-respected intern programs out there, and most professionals will tell you they couldn't have gotten where they are today without a key internship. But there are cons, too. The most worrying item is that the recent ubiquity and "upsizing" of the intern role means that regular, paid entry-level work is increasingly scarce, which can result in difficulties for younger workers. In the recent The New York Times article, “Hiring Is Rising in One Area: Low-Paid Interns,"  business owners were very clear on how valuable interns are to them. The owner of one marketing firm says bringing on interns is "a brilliant, recession-proof way to double your work force," and that he experiences a certain personal satisfaction when an intern succeeds and he knows that he gave them "that little boost."   The Times went on to quote C. Mason Gates, the president and founder of Internships.com, as saying that with economic uncertainty, smaller businesses would continue to view interns as a source of growth, talent development and project-based work. It's clear that such internships are win-win. People are using them to get ahead, and companies are using them to stay strong in a tough economy. But is the upsizing of the internship coming at the expense of paid, entry-level positions? And what might be the consequences of this? Among my job-seeking peers, I am more and more often hearing the complaint that "all" the entry-level openings have been re-tooled as internships where you are offered "experience" and "exposure" but very rarely pay. These people (most of whom have been laid off after 2-6 years of experience) consider themselves "past" seeking internships, and would prefer paid work. But these increasingly upsized internships, they claim, are eclipsing regular work. I found myself curious about my own profession: has the role of intern shifted in the past few years? Just to check, I took a an unscientific, but well-informed, whirl through the want ads on craigslist.org, checking the openings in my own specialty. I’ve kept daily tabs on this website and this category for seven years or so, and I often contributed to posting and writing the ads myself for big-name local firms. I figured I could easily spot some differences in titles, duties, and pay, if they existed. Some former employers jumped out immediately, and so did the terms of their ads. I can say with certainty that at one former employer -- a medium-sized publishing company -- entry-level jobs seem to no longer exist. What we would have once called an “assistant editor” is now an unpaid intern with a full load of responsibilities such as reviewing products, writing articles, proofing pages for publication, and more. While I don't begrudge the interns their chance to shine, I uneasily recalled that some of these activities come with a journalistic code of ethics and corporate exposure to liability. I wondered what kind of legal oversight a company has over unpaid workers. When I worked there (and the economy was good), unpaid interns were given mostly "grunt work" concerning mailing lists, data back-ups, contest administration, and organization, coupled with the chance of possibly writing one heavily-supervised article each issue. With training, good interns eventually made their way into paid entry-level positions — which are now, in turn, internships. I have to say that something does seem wrong with this picture. I am a strong supporter of internships, but I am concerned that the poor economy is leading to a deficiency in paid entry-level work. Ironically, it seems that the solution to this is to -- you guessed it -- get a great internship, get your experience, and try to transition it into a paid position. It may simply be a reality that market forces have led to a shift, and we may all have to adjust expectations accordingly. Do you have any observations about the changing role of the intern?