The supply-and-demand model of labour markets is fundamentally broken, and that's why you're not get
The supply-and-demand model of labour markets is fundamentally broken, and that's why you're not getting a pay rise any time soon
Jim Edwards at Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/supply-and-demand-model-of-labour-markets-is-fundamentally-broken-2018-6?utm_source=reddit.com
"SNIP.........
The reason Taylor can be so confident is that employers — and, belatedly, economists — are waking up to the fact that the old-fashioned supply-and-demand model of the labour market is dead. Employers have gained enough power in the marketplace to permanently hold down wages, even when unemployment is as low as 3.9% in the US and 4.2% in the UK.
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As I've noted before on Business Insider, the part-time gig economy has broken a fundamental link in capitalism that was good for workers. Pay rates no longer move upward as unemployment moves downward because companies like Uber, Just Eat, and Deliveroo can switch their demand for labour on and off, on a minute-by-minute basis. Self-employed folks making a living on Etsy, Amazon, Airbnb or eBay know their clients instantly go elsewhere if they raise their prices by even a few pennies.
Unemployment is low because a massive number of new jobs today are part-time gig economy jobs. Part-time "underemployment" has, statistically replaced the mass unemployment we remember from the 1980s. As Johnson says, "A majority of people who are classified as poor now live in a household where someone is in work. This is a complete turnaround from 20 years ago when two-thirds of the poor lived in workless households."
In other words, in the old days when you lost your job you claimed unemployment benefits and lived "on the dole." Today, you deliver pizzas or stuff packages in an Amazon warehouse for 20 hours a week.
.........SNIP"
