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Long-Term Unemployment: The Role of Wage Adjustments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Philip E.T. Lewis
Philip E.T. Lewis*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Murdoch University, Perth
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Abstract

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The problem of long-term unemployment has, at last, taken centre stage in the policy debate with the publication of the Green Paper Restoring Full Employment. While economic growth will reduce the general level of unemployment, to return the long-term unemployed to work will require increased training and reduction of labour costs. More recently the concept of a ‘training wage’ whereby employers would be allowed to pay below the current award wage to previously long-term unemployed has received some support. The Green Paper did not give much attention to training wages, preferring instead to focus on wage subsidies. In this paper the case for wage adjustments is discussed and evaluated.

Type
Symposium: Options to Reduce Long Term Unemployment
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 1994 , pp. 11 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1994

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank Keith Norris for his helpful comments and Sheila Anderson for her secretarial support.

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