Long Term Unemployment: The Case for Policy Reform

Bruce Chapman

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 1993, vol. 4, issue 2, 218-240

Abstract: Long term unemployment is now Australia's most difficult and costly labour market problem. This paper argues the case for a different policy reorientation to what has been followed in the past. The first conclusion is that in the absence of a substantial reorientation of policy long term unemployment will remain very high, with the absolute number staying above the level inherited from the 1982/83 recession — which was until the current recession the highest in Australian history. Second, the equity and macroefficiency costs of not doing anything radically different are argued to be very high. A final part of the analysis considers the fundamental challenge of the Job Compact policy suggestion made in the Government's Green Paper on unemployment. However, the way in which the policy is to be instituted needs attention. It is likely that the use of the current JOBSTART wage subsidy scheme will not be enough to achieve the desired outcomes.

Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/103530469300400204 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:4:y:1993:i:2:p:218-240

DOI: 10.1177/103530469300400204

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Economic and Labour Relations Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().