VMware, Facebook and Microsoft pay interns $6,000 a month

US TECHNOLOGY FIRMS pay their interns a lot more than most American workers earn, according to figures reported by Business Insider.

The website engaged a career rating firm to compile a list of 20 mostly Silicon Valley companies that pay interns well, and they include all the firms that you might expect to be on such a list, including Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google and IBM. The companies and what they pay their interns range from Cisco at $3,930 per month or $47,160 annually, to VMware at $6,536 per month or $78,432 annually.

Also in the mix are Intel, which pays a pro rata annual wage of $56,988, Apple at $58,968 and Google at $68,136. Microsoft is the third highest intern payer, at $71,232, while Facebook clearly loves its young staff, offering the equivalent of $72,672 a year.

Average annual salaries in the US are about $30,000 to $50,000, depending on geographic region.

It's rather amazing that these are the stipends of interns taken onboard for a few months, typically during the Summer, to give them some work experience.

These are young people who are still in college and are happy to do whatever they're asked to do but aren't asked to do very much, really, or anything that's rather difficult. However, many recent college graduates are having some trouble finding jobs, and most of them would regard those as rather decent starting salaries.

Granted, many of these internships are in Silicon Valley and the cost of living is high there, but it tends to make us think that these big US high technology companies must have money to burn. µ