A living wage at a local council will act as a hiring standard that stops low paid workers from being shortlisted for vacancies in the 129 council jobs affected by the proposed living wage increase.
The Council must hire on merit so only those who currently earn about $19 in other jobs will be shortlisted. That is the law. The Council must hire the best available applicant. The minimum wage workers who currently fill these minimum wage jobs simply could not cannot be lawfully shortlisted.
It is explicit in the living wage literature that a living wage improves the quality of applicants for future vacancies.
When a living wage job is advertised, more qualified applicants will apply. This will crowd-out the existing workers had who shortlisted for these Council jobs. They will have to apply for other minimum wage jobs but pay rates to fund council jobs they can never win.
There is no way around this because of the duty of the Council to hire on merit.
All future vacancies covered by the living wage increase will be filled by workers who are currently better paid than the existing applicants who won those jobs in the past.
Any employer who unilaterally introduces a living wage is simply raising their hiring standards saying they will not hire applicants who do not currently earn the equivalent of the living wage in their previous job.
A living wage will exclude low paid worker from council jobs in the future. I have attached a more detailed analysis of the economics of a living wage as proposed by the Wellington City Council.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments