The State of Workers’ Wages Around the World

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Some of this Real News Network interview with Richard Wolff, who is currently a visiting professor at the New School, on a new ILO report on workers’ wages covers familiar ground. Wage growth in advanced economies has been much slower than that in emerging economies, in large measure due to multinational moving jobs overseas to exploit lower labor costs. But the interesting part of the conversation is Wolff’s argument on why this is in fact not defensible conduct and what countries like the US ought to do about it.

Wolff praises Germany at the end. Not everyone would agree with this assessment. Germany implemented a series of labor market reforms known as the Hartz reforms from 2003 through 2005. Here are two discussions: German labour reforms: Unpopular success and Hartz IV reform did not reduce unemployment in Germany.