Quote:
Originally Posted by crazy_eoj
Like a place who can afford to hire a dishwasher with the new lower minimum wage?
This is exactly what happens, meaning there is competition, even for dishwashers. Perhaps the best dishwashers will even make slightly more than the new lower minimum wage and less than the prep cook.
In this example by raising the minimum wage you haven't helped the prep cook, you've just destroyed work for dishwashers.
Employment among youth is the lowest in Alberta's history. It's not a coincidence.
|
I’m arguing businesses will take profit rather than hire new workers given replacement workers exist and the uncertain market means minimizing costs is a primary driver right now. I agree once the job market tightens and there isn’t a surplus of workers that what you suggest will happen.
I’ve been disappointed in the analysis around youth unemployment. It hasn’t seem to have gone beyond comparing the percentages. To really compare you need to pull out the general increase in youth unemployment North America wide and normalize it.
Then you need to try to parse the recession from the wage increase by comparing say Seattle data to Calgary Data. Then we could have a good discussion around cause.
Right now we have high youth unemployment which is caused by some combination of high minimum wage, recession, general reduction in youth interest in employment or even other factors like the TFW program. It’s tough to provide a solution when the cause isn’t well defined.