Unpaid Placements Strain Trainee Professionals: New NZ Study

New UC research highlights financial challenges for trainee teachers, midwives, nurses, and social workers due to long degrees and unpaid work placements.

A new study from Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) Mathematics and Statistics senior lecturer Dr Leighton Watson reveals significant financial challenges faced by trainee teachers, midwives, nurses, and social workers due to unpaid placements during their degree programmes.

These female-dominated professions require three to four years of full-time tertiary study, during which students must pay university fees while working for free on unpaid work placements as part of their qualifications.

“Midwives require a four-year degree during which they pay over $38,000 in fees and must do more than a year of full-time work on unpaid placements,” Dr Watson says.

While students are rewarded with higher salaries after completing their university degrees in these fields, the time spent out of the workforce, paying university fees, accumulating debt, and struggling financially during placements has long term implications.

It takes more than eight years since starting to study for a nurse to have higher cumulative earnings than someone who worked a minimum wage job during that time and up to 12 years for a social worker. The financial challenges of lengthy unpaid placements, along with the potentially decade-long wait to see the financial rewards of these degrees, make it particularly difficult for individuals with dependents and older people looking to retrain to enter these professions.

The substantial financial implications contribute to high dropout rates among trainee teachers, midwives, nurses, and social workers.

“Dropout rates from social work programmes are around 40% and 37% for midwives, compared to only about 2% for firefighters and police who are paid during their training,” Dr Watson says.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, new firefighters train for 12 weeks and police recruits for 20 weeks. While living at the Royal NZ Police College campus in Porirua, a police recruit is paid with the cost for subsidised accommodation taken from their fortnightly salary. A firefighter recruit is paid to attend a 12-week live-in course at the Fire and Emergency National Training Centre in Rotorua, with meals and accommodation provided.

The long-term financial impact of paying university fees while studying for several years and working for free on unpaid placements means that, despite higher salaries for teachers, midwives, nurses, and social workers compared to police and firefighters, it takes many years before the higher salaries result in higher cumulative earnings.

“For nurses, it takes 14 years since starting their studies to achieve cumulative earnings equivalent to those of police officers, while for midwives, it takes 28 years,” Dr Watson says.

“From a financial perspective, it may not make sense to train in these careers, which could help explain some of the workforce shortages in these professions.”

This research suggests that paying students for placements could reduce the financial burden during training, which would help to address workforce shortages in teaching, nursing, social work, and midwifery. This proposal is currently being discussed by a select committee in Parliament.

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