Finance graduate interns may be among the thousands of young university leavers who are being exploited by employers who are underpaying and overworking them, it has been reported.

With growing numbers of graduates struggling to find work, many are becoming so desperate that they are working for free or even paying for the privilege, the Daily Mail reports.

The news provider reveals that in the "Class of the Credit Crunch", those who graduated in the summer of 2008, some eight per cent were still unemployed six months later – a 44 per cent increase on the previous year.

Recession-hit employers are now said to be using the internship system as a way to reduce costs, with paid jobs that graduates would have previously secured being replaced by unpaid work experience roles.

Mr Try, who has set up a website called Interns Anonymous, told the Mail: "What we have found is that thousands and thousands of graduates are doing these unpaid work placements and, as a result, these entry level jobs are drying up.

"Instead they are looking to graduates to provide free labour while holding out the promise of a job. The problem is that they rarely seem to deliver on that promise."

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