This report considers explanations for why data show adult employees earning below the hourly Federal Minimum Wage (FMW), including whether identifiable categories of employees fall into this group, and the extent to which this phenomenon is due to data problems. The three main data sources used were the Survey of Employment Arrangements, Retirement and Superannuation...

A price on carbon will have a marginal effect on the number of jobs in the mining industry compared to the normal ebb and flow of the employment market, according to this report. It is commonplace in Australian policy debate for groups presumed to be adversely affected by proposed policies to provide estimates of the...

In examining the history of Australian apprentices, the paper finds that the term ‘Australian apprentices’ can encompass employees in a wide variety of occupations and training with differing qualifications. It finds however, that from a wage-setting perspective, wage arrangements still distinguish between what are ‘traditional trades’ employees (apprentices) from non traditional trades employees (trainees). The...

This paper describes and contrasts approaches that are typically employed to define and assess living standards and needs. The paper notes that because many aspects of living standards cannot be directly observed, research typically relies on one or more indicators of living standards. The most common of these in Australian research is income, and the...

Ttrade reforms may have conflicting impact on informality and corruption. Stringent regulations coupled with corruption generate and sustain extra legal or informal transactions in the developing countries. Does trade related reform discourage informal activities and corruption? This paper attempts to analyze such a phenomenon. An import competing firm allocates production between a high wage formal...