Australians are increasingly staying in their jobs and fewer entrepreneurs are starting new businesses, making it harder for resources to flow to high-productivity, high-wage businesses, he said.
The slowdown in productivity is due to a number of factors, including the expansion of the service sector, fewer technological advances, smaller gains in education and less competition as fewer firms gain more market power, Wood said.
To reverse Australia’s declining economic fortunes, policymakers needed to improve opportunities for female workers, reform competition laws and reverse declining educational standards.
“I can’t help but reflect that if women’s untapped labor force participation were a massive deposit of iron ore, we’d have governments falling over themselves to subsidize it out of the ground,” she said. to say.
Institutional changes such as grant reform could reduce the influence of dominant firms and increase productivity, Wood said.
“Healthy competition is not just about lower prices, but about the relentless pursuit of innovation to deliver new and better products and services.
“We shouldn’t want to be a country where businesses see more benefit in lobbying for a better deal from policymakers than in investing in better products and services.
“Heavily regulated sectors such as mining, property and construction and gambling are characterized by remarkably high levels of political donations and lobbying compared to their relative economic contribution.”
The jobs summit will run for two days in Canberra. Olive + Maeve
Targeting higher-wage migrants, easing restrictive zoning laws and reforming the stamp duty were also offered as potential ways to move productivity.
Wood also called on policymakers to lock in Australia’s historically tight labor market, with the unemployment rate at a 48-year low of 3.4 per cent while participation is near record highs.
“Strong macroeconomic conditions and a strong labor market will translate, over time, into higher wages for all workers,” he said.
Low unemployment encouraged workers to switch to better jobs, improving productivity and forcing employers to consider candidates they would otherwise have rejected in a weaker labor market.
“Our work shows that workers with lower wages and less wealth have more to gain. Their unemployment rates fall more than other groups when the overall unemployment rate is lower. Macroeconomic conditions matter for inequality,” Wood said.
A commitment to full employment required better policy on climate, industrial relations and digital skills, he said.
“It will need to focus on recruiting and training Australian workers, not just disabled and work-ready 30-year-olds, but also younger people getting their first job, people with disabilities and older workers who are still they want to do work, a contribution”.
It was also essential to improve women’s opportunities. Australia ranks 38th in the world for women’s economic opportunities despite having some of the highest levels of education for women globally.
“This process still has a significant distance to run in Australia. Australia has some of the highest levels of education for women in the world, but we currently rank 38th in the world in terms of economic opportunities for women,” she said. say Ms. Wood.
“I can’t help but reflect that if women’s untapped labor force participation were a massive mineral deposit, we’d have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground.”