How healthy is UK economy?

UK unemployment rate: 7.8%

Trade Unions

The impact of union intervention on the labour market

Effects of trade union representation wage bargaining

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Effects of trade union representation on supply

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Unions may reduce the supply of labour by maintaining certain controls on the numbers of new Trade union intervention can have recruits. This may be done by the effect of separating the market supporting the retention of a into two; the unionised sector with lengthy training period, as in the high wages and good working law or accountancy, or insisting conditions and the non-unionised on union membership before sector with a higher supply of labour somebody can enter a job, for and worse pay and working example, the acting profession. conditions. This is known as the insider and outsider problem.

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The case for the minimum wage

Minimum wage
A law that is passed which means that no employer can pay an employee below the set rate Living wage in the UK: This is calculated by the Centre for Research and Social Policy at Loughborough University. They have calculated an amount that the average person needs to stay out of poverty in the UK. It varies across the UK, in London as of November 2012 it stands at 8.55 and in the rest of the UK 7.45. The minimum wage was introduced to the UK in 1998.

Minimum wage
Why are there 4 categories? Why do you think that the minimum wage has dropped below the living wage? What might happen in the UK now if the minimum wage was increased to the level of the living wage?

Why have a minimum wage?

Which parts of the world are most equal? Which parts of the world are most unequal?

Case Study: The minimum wage in Hong Kong

Describe life in Hong Kong and how it is changing What reasons are given for introducing a minimum wage? What reasons are given for not introducing a minimum wage?

Can the minimum wage cause unemployment?

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The minimum wage

Arguments for Arguments against