Youth Wages: A Note 1

Abstract

The record levels of youth unemployment experienced in recent years has led to a number of theories being advanced to explain this phenomena. Onesuch theory claims that youth labour is too expensive to employ; young people have priced the mselves out of a job. Young people are seen as unwilling to work for the wages employers can afford to pay. This note using data from two longitudinal surveys of the labour market experiences of young people seeks to challenge this view, and shows that the wages young people expect to earn and are prepared to work for in their first job are appreciably below actual earnings of young workers.