Qualifikation und Flexibilität als Voraussetzung für Wohlstand
Heute Morgen habe ich Martin Sandbu und die Autowäsche diskutiert. Wesentliche Erkenntnis: Es ist gut für die Produktivität, wenn der Lohnunterschied nicht zu hoch ist und zugleich das Bildungsniveau steigt und der Arbeitsmarkt flexibel ist. Heute schauen wir mit ihm noch genauer auf die Faktoren, die dazu führen, dass die Produktivität und damit der Wohlstand wächst. Ein Thema, das uns bekanntlich in Deutschland nicht interessiert, aber interessieren sollte!
- “Achieving growth by shedding jobs based on cheap labour offers the promise of wage and productivity growth. But it also poses the question at the heart of the economic changes in the west over the past four decades (and the decades to come): what happens to those workers whose tasks are eliminated?” – bto: auf uns übertragen: Wie verhindern wir einen Produktivitätsverfall in den kommenden Jahren und anhaltende Arbeitslosigkeit in diesem Segment?
- “The first is (…) aggressive aggregate demand management in macroeconomic policy. Wage egalitarianism changes the composition of jobs in the economy — towards more capital-intensive, high-productivity tasks on average — but the total number of those jobs depends on the overall demand in the economy. If macroeconomic policy tools such as government budget balances and central banking interest rates are used aggressively enough, sufficient new and better jobs can be created to offset all the low-productivity jobs that are lost because wages are too high to employ people for them.” – bto: übersetzt: Wenn wir Mindestlöhne hochsetzen, müssen wir auch die Nachfrage befördern.
- “(…) second, such a policy of aggressive job creation can only work if workers are equipped to fill the new and more productive roles. That requires two things: workers must be able and willing to perform the new jobs, and the labour market must smooth as much as possible workers’ move from one job to another as low-productivity roles become obsolete.
- “The five Nordic countries (…) rank highly for adult cognitive skills, an important key to employability in a shifting economy.” – bto: Und jetzt schauen wir mal, a) wo wir liegen (geht noch), b) wo die Länder liegen, aus denen wir Zuwanderung anlocken. Hier ist nur die Türkei zu sehen, sagt aber schon alles.
- “As for helping workers move between jobs, the Nordic labour markets are characterised by what Denmark calls ‘flexicurity’ — flexible rules for hiring and firing, but with policies and institutions in place to improve the chances of getting a new job. In Sweden, for example, employers’ organisations are held responsible for worker reallocation schemes to find new jobs for workers who are let go. Denmark has by far the highest rate of public spending on ‘active labour market policies’ among rich economies: the government spends about 2 per cent of national income on helping workers find new jobs, mostly on training and on creating sheltered or supported job opportunities or rehabilitating workers. Sweden and Finland come in next with about half as much; the US spends a meagre 0.11 per cent. As a result, Swedes, Danes and Finns move between jobs more often than almost all other European workers, with almost a quarter of them shifting every year as the chart below shows.” – bto: Auch das ist bei uns ganz anders, Kündigungsschutz, hohe Zahlungen. Interessanterweise tauchen wir da nicht auf …
- “The countries that have achieved these goals are those that have chosen to devote resources to it. Other countries can direct their resources the same way, and expect similar results, if they just prioritise accordingly.” – bto: Und davon kann bei uns mal wieder keine Rede sein.
→ ft.com (Anmeldung erforderlich): “In economic policy, you get what you pay for”, 4. März 2019
