Where I work, yes, internship places have been massively reduced. Internships feed into the hiring pipeline: no hiring, no internships.<p>They're not a way to get low cost employees, since even very adept interns need a ton of guidance and help from the people around them, and that takes time from the full time employees hosting the interns.
From what I've experienced yes. The teams suffering from layoffs where I've worked haven't had any interns assigned to them, and it seems like the number of people taken on as interns in general has been significantly reduced as well.
I doubt it, most companies use interns illegally for free work, they are not supposed to replace regular workers or do work that generates money but as mostly a benefit for the intern