Hi! I got my sister who is interning at KPMG Dubai (audit) and the only offer is aed 500 monthly stipend. They are expected to be at the client but no expenses are reimbursed by KPMG. It seems quite absurd and unethical that even expenses incurred while travelling to or at the client is not reimbursed! Is this normal in Dubai ? How are interns expected to bear all expenses with a stipend that barely covers food?KPMG
Coach
I've never actually heard of an unpaid internship at a consultancy. I didn't expect a firm as respected and well known as KPMG to do this.
Thats crazy. When I worked in Dubai and we had interns, it wasn’t paid but we wont ask them to go to clients sites.
This is very common in Dubai & the labor pipeline has candidates who are willing to take up these roles for free (based on opinions accumulated through networking).
The minimum requirements for an internship require to be under sponsorship, which implies the assumption of spending capacity. However, friends who have done these internships in the past said they were reimbursed at the end of the internship (subjective) when projects were extended &/or voluminous.
As of today, competitiveness dictates that it takes money to make money & investing just in an education isn’t apparently enough anymore to stand out.
Most of my friends that interned at consulting firms in Dubai had really good pay.
In undergrad when I interned at Kearney I was treated as a full-time employee with high pay (5K$/month), full benefits (health insurance), and was able to expense when I was at the client. They even covered accommodation at a hotel for the duration of my stay in Dubai.
Not sure if audit at Big4 is different, but even as an intern I would expect minimum livable wage.
Community Builder
Oh I remember back in 2018, KPMG was hiring audit interns. I was offered a stipend of AED 500 and I turned the offer down. Just because I did not have a prior experience did not mean I was going to accept AED 500. I went to intern at a real estate company in Dubai which paid far more to intern and even got a company’s card, overtime pay, full reimbursement of expenses. Few of my other friends turned down KPMG internship for IBM which was for them the best decision ever.
Community Builder
Hard to believe that they are still doing this.