In news that is perhaps only promising if you’re one of the few women carving out a career for yourself within technology, it turns out that Facebook interns earn more than the average American household.
And these aren’t postgrad interns scraping their way about in the vague hope it might turn into a job, these are high schoolers earning $6, 213 (£3,626) a month in their summer holidays ahead of the degrees they’ll take which will go on to help them earn even more than the $74,556 (£43,510) salary that this monthly payslip would work out to. Yeesh.
According to these calculations, an intern’s salary works out to be £12,553 more than the average US household’s salary of $53,046 (£30,957), according to* New York Daily News*. It’s also about double the average UK graduate’s starting salary.
The payment given to interns as they learn the ropes of the international social network, based in Silicon Valley, California, was revealed by Glassdoor, a jobs site. ‘[We] shed light on how much money some companies pay interns and to underscore the current competitive climate among employers for the best, new talent.’
And they say it’s not only Facebook which pays its interns really highly, but loads of other hi-tech industries in the San Francisco Bay area – Twitter pays its interns a whopping $7,012 (£4,092) per month. All of which is making us think: when it comes to money flung at abysmally young people who must doubtlessly go on to lead lavish lifestyles as a result, could tech wizards be the new footballers?
Michael Sayman, who worked as an intern for Facebook last year, didn’t only get this pay, but was flown out to Miami to meet the boss – Mark Zuckerberg – to tell him about a mobile game he made for the site which attracted 500,000 users.
Michael, 17, is back this summer for more interning, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. Saving money by staying in Facebook’s Mountain View intern housing accommodation – the tech company offered to put his mum up too but she said: ‘No, you have to learn to live on your own’ – he still has braces.
‘I try to keep my mouth closed during meetings because I don’t want people to see them and not take me seriously,’ he says about being one of Silicon Valley’s high school interns.
Aw! With serious money behind him, though, who wouldn’t take this tech-savvy teen seriously? Not us… we’re off to learn some coding, stat.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.