http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:3889 The unemployment rate is often used as a summary comparative measure and captures the attention of the media more often than other labour market indicators. However, it is a narrow concept of underutilisation and ignores many other sources of labour wastage. In this paper, we discuss the limitations of the unemployment rate in this respect and compute a range of measures for Australia which are designed to provide better indication of labour slack. We present two hours-based measures of labour underutilisation for Australia, which quantify the degree of underutilisation and underemployment among the unemployed, the hidden unemployed, and the part-time workers who desire more hours of work. We conclude that the official unemployment significantly understates the degree of underutilisation in Australia. Finally, we examine the presence of cyclical non-linearities in several indicators of underutilisation. We conclude that the asymmetries present impact more significantly on the most disadvantaged in the labour market. 2012-11-22T00:10:03.813Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:10225 There has been a growing awareness that the issue of labour market disadvantage is substantially greater than merely considering unemployment and the ability to find a job. There is an increasing literature that points to the advantages of considering a broader concept which accounts not only for those people who are traditionally unemployed, but also for individuals who are underemployed and those who are sub-unemployed or discouraged workers. Taking multidimensional survey and census data for Australian metropolitan regions, this paper applies a broad employability framework to an understanding of labour underutilisation which presents the risk of underutilisation as a function of individual characteristics, personal circumstances and the impact of local labour market characteristics. The analysis finds that the risk of labour underutilisation is associated with a range of individual characteristics and personal circumstances together with the characteristics of the metropolitan local labour market. 2012-02-28T04:20:03.863Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6183 In this paper we propose that the rise in underemployment has changed the wage setting process in the labour market and is now used by employers as a means of disciplining wages growth. We use the Australian labour market as the empirical example. Our further work will focus on other economies. The paper is laid out as follows. Section 2 traces the rise in underemployment in Australia to the dynamics that accompanied the 1991 recession. Firms rapidly replaced full-time jobs with fractional opportunities. Section 3 considers wage and productivity movements in Australia and finds that over the recent growth cycle, real wages have trailed behind labour productivity and hence there has been a massive redistribution of national income to profit. Further, the relation between the employment rate and real wages growth has changed dramatically over the last growth period. Compared to earlier periods, rising employment rates have very little impact on real wages growth. Section 4 develops a theoretical model grounded in labour market segmentation theory to explain these trends. Section 5 provides formal econometric evidence to support the proposition that underemployment is a significant negative influence on inflation. Concluding remarks follow. 2010-05-07T05:41:22.284Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:3918 This paper presents revised estimates of the two hours-based measures of labour underutilisation in Australia developed by Mitchell and Carlson (2001a), which explicitly account for hidden unemployment and underemployment. The revisions are due to improvements in the methodology in line with new developments in data collection in Australia. Second, the paper compares and contrasts a range of labour underutilisation measures in terms of their cyclical properties, and seeks to determine whether asymmetry is present and on which labour market groups it impacts on most. Third, the paper considers the role labour underutilisation might play in the inflation process. Several hypotheses within a Phillips curve framework are tested concerning the sources of inflationary pressure in Australia. Specifically, the authors test whether inflation is more sensitive to movements in the short-run underutilisation measures and also whether 'within-firm' underutilisation in the form of underemployment is an additional constraining influence on inflation. The paper finds that broadening the measures of labour underutilisation beyond the official unemployment rate does provide extra insights into labour market behaviour, and that the degree of underutilisation is significantly understated by the conventional unemployment measure. It also finds that there is non-linearity behaviour in the measures driven by large negative demand shocks, with the costs of this asymmetry being more heavily borne by the more marginal workers in the labour market. Finally, it is shown that short-term unemployment provides a stronger discipline on inflation than the official unemployment rate and that underemployment plays an additional constraining role. 2010-04-27T05:28:52.693Z ]]>