Bargaining power and #wages: Collective wage agreements and union membership in Germany https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifsowp:329630&r=&r=lab
"Even in an era of declining membership of #unions, their roles remain vital in addressing contemporary labor market inequalities.
… #bargainingPower exerts a significant influence on both individual wage levels and wage inequality in Germany
… both collective wage agreements and union membership… raise wage levels at the national level.… this effect is regionally heterogeneous: Collective wage agreements continue to be linked to higher wages at the regional level, whereas the relationship is weakened or disappears altogether for union membership.
… collective wage agreements go along with lower overall wage #inequality, while union membership compresses wage inequality mainly at the lower end of the distribution."
#LaborMarkets
#LaborMarkets
There's Nothing in the Air https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22294
"the urban wage growth premium: substantially faster wage growth in larger cities
… part of this premium is driven by the firms that choose to sort themselves into bigger cities
… eliminating the job ladder mechanism, the urban wage growth premium falls by 94.1% after accounting for firms and coworkers.
… results challenge the view that cities generate human capital spillovers “in the air,” suggesting instead that urban wage dynamics reflect the #sorting of firms and workers and the pace of job #mobility."
#wages #matching #LaborMarkets
#Signaling in the Age of AI: Evidence from Cover Letters https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.25054&r=&r=lma
"While #AI tools allow freelancers to produce more polished and tailored applications with less effort, our findings suggest that they fundamentally reshape how employers interpret cover letters. The widespread adoption of AI-assisted writing diminishes the informational value of cover letters, weakening their role as a hiring signal.
Workers with weaker pre-AI writing skills saw larger improvements in cover letters, indicating that AI substitutes for workers’ own skills. Although only a minority of applications used the tool, the overall correlation between cover letter tailoring and callbacks fell by 51%, implying that cover letters became less informative signals of worker ability in the age of AI."
#LaborMarkets #jobtech
The Role of Firms and Occupations in Wage Inequality https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325461&r=&r=eur
"… find that between-occupation job variance is roughly as important as within-occupation between-firm variation, and that between-occupation sorting is significantly more important than within-occupation between-firm sorting in our context.
… 21% of total log-wage variance can be attributed to between-occupation pay variance and sorting of workers between occupations, while 9% can be attributed to variance within occupations between firms and sorting between workers and firms within occupations.
… suggests that occupation-based factors, such as #heterogeneity in skill prices, are quantitatively more important than firm pay dispersion.
… in higher-wage occupations and larger labor markets firm-level heterogeneity is relatively more important, although the importance of firm-worker sorting does not vary.
… individual-level differences are significantly more important in both higher-wage occupations and larger labor markets."
#LaborMarkets #wages #occupationalClassification #skills
Are decredentialed jobs a route to upward mobility? https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:4kgj9_v1&r=&r=bec
"… for some jobs, a degree requirement may be a rough and ready #screening tool, filtering out many qualified candidates, or even a result of occupational closure.
When workers move into jobs that have recently dropped degree requirements they receive an earnings premium of around $6000 per year relative to similar workers moving into never-credentialled jobs. This is despite the fact that when employers decredential they deskill the job and reduce pay by around 20%.
Non-college workers hired into these roles are more socio-economically disadvantaged than the college-educated workers they replace
… results show that the movement toward decredentialing holds promise for boosting earnings mobility for workers.
Despite these benefits, most employers that drop explicit college requirements continue to hire college graduate applicants into those positions.
… suggestive evidence that employers struggle to integrate new non-college hires and that they face backlash from existing employees."
#LaborMarkets #wages #vocationalTraining #credentials
Labour market power, firm productivity, and the immigrant-native pay gap https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:clefwp:327118&r=&r=lma
"Immigrants earn 16% less than native-born workers in Canada, and this pay gap is similar in many other high-income countries.
… immigrants earn 77% of their MRPL on average, compared to 84% for natives
First, differences in labor supply curves between immigrants and natives contribute significantly to the pay gap. Second, immigrants tend to work at more productive firms, driven by their tendency to work in cities where firms are more productive on average. Finally, interactions between firm productivity and labor supply are important, implying methodologies that rely on additive separability assumptions will likely produce biased decompositions of the immigrant-native pay gap."
#LaborMarkets #wages #discrimination
Do Employers Comply with Pay Transparency Requirements in Job Postings? https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/10/do-employers-comply-with-pay-transparency-requirements-in-job-postings/
"… employers ignore #payTransparency requirements; roughly a quarter of job listings covered by these laws fail to include salary information."
#wages #LaborMarkets #oja
Developing a New European Indicator of Potential Skill Shortages https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18133&r=&r=eur
"… estimate that approximately 2% of job vacancies in the European Union are likely to experience skill shortages.
… there is substantial variation across occupations, ranging from 5.1% for ICT professionals to approximately zero in more elementary occupations. There is also substantial variation in the estimated incidences of potential skill shortages at member state level, ranging from over 10% in Luxembourg to under 1% in Estonia and Poland.
… analysis shows that occupations that are most likely to experience #skillShortages also tend to experience relatively high rates of changes in skill requirements over time"
#LaborMarkets #skills
Explaining the Dynamics of the Gender Gap in Lifetime Earnings https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:994&r=&r=lab
"Comparing our results with the US, we find that the gender gap in lifetime earnings has remained significantly smaller in France
.… while the US has seen a striking narrowing of the gap between cohorts across the whole distribution (except at the very top), in France, we observe a sharp narrowing only at the top and bottom of the distribution for the youngest cohorts.
.… In France, lifetime earnings have increased across the entire distribution for both men and women. In contrast, in the US, men below the median have experienced losses.
… the contribution of unobserved factors decreases across cohorts but increases across the distribution
… this sharp decline in the unexplained part has been accompanied by a growing role of observable factors. The most important effect comes from… the decline in the years worked full time, which has slowed down the convergence across genders.
… At the bottom of the distribution, the minimum wage helps reduce earnings disparities, while #workingTime remains the primary driver of the gender gap in lifetime earnings. At the top, our results are consistent with a glass-ceiling effect, which has weakened over time.
… the increase in educational attainment and the narrowing of the gender gap in returns to #education have also contributed to the reduction in the gender pay gap"
#LaborMarkets #wages #gpg
Decomposing Trends in the Gender Gap for Highly Educated Workers https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2457&r=&r=lab
"… much of the large gap in earnings between the 1931 and 1950 cohorts is due to a cohort specific “residual component” that shifts the gender gap in earnings by the same amount for all college graduates. Most of the decline is within occupation, especially for the early cohorts. The residual gap varies little for the 1951 to late 1970s birth cohorts, after which it resumes its decline.
… the extensive literature on the long term trend in the gender gap suggests changes in total labor experience at a given age, hours per week, lower fertility, shifting gender norms and preferences affecting occupation choice, and reduced #discrimination against women have all played a role.
… gender differences in the relative return to undergraduate and graduate degree combinations contribute to the gender gap, but very little to the decline in the gender gap over the full time period
… the education gap is large for the early cohorts but declines substantially and is an important part of the narrowing of the gender gap. However, to our surprise, this decline is mostly offset by cohort trends in the relative returns to specific fields that favored men"
#LaborMarkets #wages #gpg
Equal Pay for Similar Work https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.17111
"… the equilibrium effects of Equal Pay for Similar Work (EPSW) policies dominate their direct effects
… imposing these policies may lead to unintended outcomes.
… EPSW targeted specifically to equalize pay across protected classes of workers leads to firms segregating their workforce in equilibrium to avoid the bite of the policy. Although discriminatory forces may lead to pay gaps across groups without EPSW, #segregation caused by EPSW results in the minority group of workers in a labor market receiving even lower relative #wages"
#LaborMarkets #gpg #discrimination
People are using ChatGPT to write their applications; HR is using AI to read them; no one is getting hired.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/job-market-hell/684133/
"Online #hiring platforms have made it easier to find an opening but harder to secure one: Applicants send out thousands of AI-crafted résumés, and businesses use #AI to sift through them. What Bumble and Hinge did to the dating market, contemporary human-resources practices have done to the job market. People are swiping like crazy and getting nothing back.
…recommends old-fashioned networking: asking recruiters out for coffee, going to in-person job events, and surveying friends and former employers for leads."
#jobTech #LaborMarkets
Companies are rethinking online job applications, seeking quality over quantity
https://archive.ph/Vn52u#selection-559.0-574.0
"Companies fed up with the low-quality, sometimes fraudulent submissions that flood applicant-tracking systems are reaching back in time for hard-to-hack recruiting methods. Classified ads are just one tack.
Others include: leaning harder on references; making application forms so cumbersome that only serious candidates will complete them; and posting openings on niche job boards instead of the most popular ones.
… All these tools for applicants to get seen are backfiring, forcing me to go to longer and longer lengths to filter out the noise and #AI fraud,"
Against the Standard https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/36879/8/Cubel_Against_dp764_2025.pdf
"… in the absence of feedback, women are less likely than men to benchmark their performance against a standard of excellence. This is inefficient because women who are likely to obtain increased rewards choose a low reward scheme instead.
… When feedback is provided and the standard is set by peers, this gender gap closes. However, the gap re-emerges, and even widens, when the standard of excellence is set by experts.
… If standards are set by experts and committees are perceived as male-dominated, a gender gap will exist in the award of promotions, grants or recognition. Understanding the differential impact of standards and feedback provision can help to design more inclusive competitive processes and bridge gender gaps in labour market outcomes."
#ExperimentalEcon #LaborEconomics #wages #gpg #LaborMarkets
Beyond pay: #AI skills reward more job benefits https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2507.20410&r=&r=ain
"AI-related job postings are significantly more likely to advertise benefits such as remote work options, a positive workplace culture, and parental leave compared to non-AI roles
… It is twice as likely for an AI role to offer parental leave and almost three times more likely to provide remote working options.
… non-monetary benefits tend to complement rather than substitute for high salaries."
#wfh #LaborMarkets #wages
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has unveiled the full schedule for the 2025 Jackson Hole Symposium, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech set for the morning of the second day.
#YonhapInfomax #JacksonHoleSymposium #FederalReserve #JeromePowell #MacroeconomicPolicy #LaborMarkets #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=78179
Surface Fairness, Deep Bias: A Comparative Study of Bias in Language Models https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.10491
"… the estimation of socio-economic parameters shows substantially more bias than subject-based benchmarking. Furthermore, such a setup is closer to a real conversation with an AI assistant. In the era of memory-based AI assistants, the risk of persona-based #LLM bias becomes fundamental. Therefore, we highlight the need for proper debiasing method development and suggest pay gap as one of reliable measures of bias in LLMs
… various forms of #biases when salaries for women are substantially lower than for men, as well as drops in salary values for people of color and of Hispanic origin. In the migrant type category, expatriate salaries tend to be larger, while salaries for refugees are mostly low"
Surprise! These LLMs just replicate the empirical observations of #wages including any wage gaps that may be the result of discrimination that were part of their training data as salary recommendations. These cannot be proper recommendations, of course, they are just a stochastic auto-complete. The biases are real. But you will need tailor-made salary models to generate proper, unbiased salary benchmarks. A #llm is not enough.
#jobtech #LaborMarkets
Fairness Properties of Compensation Schemes https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11943&r=&r=lma
"… the benefits of providing incentives need to be traded off against unintended side effects due to violation of employees’ #fairness norms
… pay inequality has a strong negative effect on perceived fairness. Controlling for pay #inequality, people consider piece rate schemes fairer than those with a discrete bonus and a tournament design
… if incentive contracts cannot be avoided, they should be designed carefully and motivated with reference to #proceduralFairness"
#LaborMarkets #wages
#ExperimentalEcon
Place-Based Labor Market Inequality https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-40&r=&r=lma
"… substantial #heterogeneity in the degree of labor market #tightness across counties, as measured by the vacancy rate using job postings from Lightcast, and moreover find a close connection between this rate and county income #growth."
#LaborMarkets #LocalLaborMarkets
The résumé is dying, and AI is holding the smoking gun https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/the-resume-is-dying-and-ai-is-holding-the-smoking-gun/
"Some candidates are now taking automation even further, paying for #AI agents that autonomously find jobs and submit applications on their behalf.
… Recruiters report that many of the résumés look suspiciously similar, making it more difficult to identify genuinely qualified or interested candidates.
… Beyond volume, fraud poses an increasing threat
… The frustration has reached a point where AI companies themselves are backing away from their own technology during the #hiring process
… Even when AI screening tools work as intended, they exhibit similar #biases to human recruiters, preferring white male names on résumés—raising legal concerns about #discrimination"
#jobtech #LaborMarkets