Where to Now? Welfare and Labour Market Regulation in Australia

By Bob Gregory

Australia has been deregulating its labour market for 15 years, with mixed results. Some economic measures seem to show high relative GDP growth and rising real wages.

Others show that full-time employment-population ratios at historically low levels. The ratio of welfare recipients in the age range 15-64 to people in full-time employment is now at 1 to 2.5.

Gregory here focuses on these and other bad news stories and our inability to solve deep seated structural problems odf low rateso flabour utilisation and high rates of welfare take up. He discusses where policy should move to and attempts to draw lessons from the deregulation experience.

(Australian Bulletin of Labour; vol. 30, no. 1, March 2004)

National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University.