The state of the labor market in the US and the Netherlands
The share of self-employed and temporary workers in total employment in the Netherlands has grown steadily from 16.6{5e7f07e14add20b2e04f4edb85a447d3cd8121fc27b809645e9fed603c22cc5c} in 1980 to 25{5e7f07e14add20b2e04f4edb85a447d3cd8121fc27b809645e9fed603c22cc5c} in 2000 and further to almost 38{5e7f07e14add20b2e04f4edb85a447d3cd8121fc27b809645e9fed603c22cc5c} in 2016. A recent study conducted by De Nederlandsche Bank shows that temporary employment and alternative working arrangements (mostly in the form of self-employment) are the main driver of low wage growth and a declining wage share. In the US the significant number of discouraged workers who stopped looking for work and dropped out of the statistics reached a peak of 3.9 million people in 2015. This fact suggests that we should look at the low unemployment statistic with a grain of salt.
With Official Unemployment This Low, Why Are Wages Rising So Slowly?
By: Servaas Storm – Delft University of Technology
