4 Comments

Such a great post Matt. I would note that the frequency of hiring within a company can be latent - not easy to track sometimes

Expand full comment

Good point - vacancy listings are endogenous as well! As soon as you scratch under the surface these things all get complicated!

Expand full comment

Thanks - lots of factors to consider; in NZ public health it’s recently been whole professions have been reappraised (given wages set by collective agreement in vast majority of cases), based on “historical undervaluing”. Lots of difficult to calculate / personal value based considerations as well…

Expand full comment

There is definitely a layer of fairness - which is a discussion about social things, rather than an individual trying to determine if they have a "good deal" per se.

The key thing I'd add to your point is that historic undervaluing should have reflected itself in shortages - either in the number of individuals in the occupation, the number training for it, or the "quality" of training and work that takes place.

Even once the wage is set at a "good" level the accumulation of the human capital necessary to fill these gaps will take time to sort out themselves.

Expand full comment