Job guarantee

A job guarantee is based on a buffer stock principle whereby the public sector offers a fixed wage job to anyone willing and able to work thereby establishing and maintaining a buffer stock of employed workers. This buffer stock expands when private sector activity declines, and declines when private sector activity expands, much like today's unemployed buffer stocks.

A job guarantee thus fulfills an absorption function to minimize the real costs associated with the flux of the private sector. When private sector employment declines, public sector employment will automatically react and increase its payrolls. So in a recession, the increase in public employment will increase net government spending, and stimulate aggregate demand and the economy. Conversely, in a boom, the decline of public sector employment and spending caused by workers leaving their job guarantee jobs for higher paid private sector employment will lessen stimulation, so the job guarantee functions as an automatic stabilizer controlling inflation. The nation always remains fully employed, with a changing mix between private and public sector employment. Since the job guarantee wage is open to everyone, it will functionally become the national minimum wage.{{Cite web|title=Job Guarantee -|date=9 October 2014 |url=https://unemployedworkersunion.com/job-gaurantee/|access-date=6 April 2021|language=en-AU}}

Under a job guarantee, people of working age who are not in full-time education and have less than 35 hours per week of paid employment would be entitled to the balance of 35 hours paid employment, undertaking work of public benefit at the minimum wage, though specifics may change depending on the model. The aim is to replace unemployment and underemployment with paid employment (up to the hours desired by workers), so that those who are at any point in time surplus to the requirements of the private sector (and mainstream public sector) can earn a wage rather than be underemployed or suffer poverty and social exclusion.{{Cite journal|last=Tcherneva|first=Pavlina R.|date=2018|title=The Job Guarantee: Design, Jobs, and Implementation|url=https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3155289|journal=SSRN Electronic Journal|language=en|doi=10.2139/ssrn.3155289|issn=1556-5068|hdl=10419/209145|s2cid=169092426 |hdl-access=free}}

A range of income support arrangements, including a generic work-tested benefit payment, could also be available to unemployed people, depending on their circumstances, as an initial subsistence income while arrangements are made to employ them.{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}}

Job guarantee theory is often associated with certain post-Keynesian economists,{{Citation |last=Wray |first=L. Randall |title=The Endogenous Money Approach |date=Aug 2001 |url=http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp/wp17.html |issue=Working Paper No. 17 |publisher=Center for Full Employment and Price Stability |access-date=5 October 2009 |archive-date=15 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170315203457/http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/wp/wp17.html |url-status=dead }} particularly at the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (University of Newcastle, Australia), at the Levy Economics Institute (Bard College), and at University of Missouri – Kansas City including the affiliated Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.[http://www.cfeps.org/ Center for Full Employment and Price Stability]

One theory was put forward by Hyman Minsky in 1965.{{Harv|Minsky|1965}}{{Harv|Wray|2009}} Notable job guarantee theories were conceived independently by Bill Mitchell (1998),W.F. Mitchell (1998) "The Buffer Stock Employment Model - Full Employment without a NAIRU" Journal of Economic Issues 32(2), 547-55 and Warren Mosler (1997–98).W.B. Mosler (1997-98) "Full Employment and Price Stability" Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 20(2), 167-182 This work was then developed further by L. Randall Wray (1998).L. Randall Wray (1998) Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability, Edward Elgar: Northampton, MA. A comprehensive treatment of it appears in Mitchell and Muysken (2008).W.F. Mitchell and J. Muysken (2008). [http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=1188 Full Employment Abandoned: Shifting Sands and Policy failures] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150222040345/http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?id=1188|date=22 February 2015}},. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham. Revised: January 2009 [http://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=14937] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724171823/http://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=14937|date=24 July 2011}}

{{Further|NAIBER}}

A fixed job guarantee wage provides an in-built inflation control mechanism. Mitchell (1998) called the ratio of job guarantee employment to total employment the buffer employment ratio (BER).http://www.fullemployment.net/publications/wp/2000/00-01.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} The BER conditions the overall rate of wage demands. When the BER is high, real wage demands will be correspondingly lower. If inflation exceeds the government's announced target, tighter fiscal and monetary policy would be triggered to increase the BER, which entails workers transferring from the inflating sector to the fixed price job guarantee sector. Ultimately this attenuates the inflation spiral. So instead of a buffer stock of unemployed being used to discipline the distributional struggle, a job guarantee policy achieves this via compositional shifts in employment.

Replacing the currently widely-used measure the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU), the BER that results in stable inflation is called the non-accelerating inflation buffer employment ratio (NAIBER). It is a full employment steady state job guarantee level, which is dependent on a range of factors including the path of the economy. There is an issue about the validity of an unchanging nominal anchor in an inflationary environment. A job guarantee wage would be adjusted in line with productivity growth to avoid changing real relativities. Its viability as a nominal anchor relies on the fiscal authorities reining in any private wage-price pressures.

Mitchell and Muysken believe that a job guarantee introduces no relative wage effects and the rising demand does not necessarily invoke inflationary pressures because it is, by definition, satisfying the net savings desire of the private sector.http://pombo.free.fr/mitchellmuysken.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} Additionally, in today's demand constrained economies, firms are likely to increase capacity utilisation to meet the higher sales volumes. Given that the demand impulse is less than required in the NAIRU economy, if there were any demand-pull inflation it would be lower under a job guarantee. There are no new problems faced by employers who wish to hire labour to meet the higher sales levels. Any initial rise in demand will stimulate private sector employment growth while reducing job guarantee employment and spending. However, these demand pressures are unlikely to lead to accelerating inflation while the job guarantee pool contains workers employable by the private sector.

While a job guarantee policy frees wage bargaining from the general threat of unemployment, several factors offset this:

• In professional occupational markets, any unemployment will generate downwards pressure on wages. However, eventually the stock of unemployed professionals will be exhausted, whereupon upward wage-price pressures can be expected to develop. With a strong and responsive tertiary education sector, skill bottlenecks can be avoided more readily than with an unemployed buffer stock;{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}}
• Private firms would still be required to train new workers in job-specific skills in the same way they would in a non-Job Guarantee economy. However, job guarantee workers are far more likely to have retained higher levels of skill than those who are forced to succumb to lengthy spells of unemployment. This changes the bargaining environment rather significantly because firms now have reduced hiring costs. Previously, the same firms would have lowered their hiring standards and provided on-the-job training and vestibule training in tight labour markets. A job guarantee policy thus reduces the "hysteretic inertia" embodied in the long-term unemployed and allows for a smoother private sector expansion;{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}}
• With high long-term unemployment, the excess supply of labour poses a very weak threat to wage bargaining, compared to a job guarantee environment.{{Cite journal|last=Mitchell|first=William F.|date=June 1998|title=The Buffer Stock Employment Model and the NAIRU: The Path to Full Employment|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1998.11506063|journal=Journal of Economic Issues|volume=32|issue=2|pages=547–555|doi=10.1080/00213624.1998.11506063|issn=0021-3624|url-access=subscription}}

File:Expanded Public Works Programme poster at the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area.jpg. The EPWP is an attempt by government to alleviate South Africa's unemployment crisis.]]

• 1848 – The first modern direct job creation scheme was implemented by the Parisian government in France through the National Workshops which took place from February to June 1848.{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}}
• 1928–1991 – The Soviet Union guaranteed a job for nearly everyone from about 1928 (as part of the Great Break) through to its end in 1991. A job guarantee was included in its 1936 constitution, and was given further prominence in the 1977 revision.{{cite web |title=Guaranteed Jobs: 46% Favor This New Dem Big Government Idea |url=https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/guaranteed-jobs-democrats-socialism-public-polls/ |website=Investor's Business Daily |date=2 May 2018}} Later communist states followed this lead.
• 1935–1943 – In the United States from 1935 to 1943, the Works Progress Administration aimed to ensure all families in the country had one paid job,{{cite book |last=Leighninger |first=Robert D. |date=2007 |title=Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal |location=Columbia, S.C. |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |isbn=9781570036637 }} though there was never a job guarantee. Full employment was achieved by 1942 due to World War II, which led to the ending of the organisation the following year.
• 1945 – From 1945, the Australian government was committed to full employment through the position established by the White Paper Full Employment in Australia, however this never included a formal job guarantee. The Reserve Bank Act 1959 charges the Reserve Bank of Australia with ensuring full employment, amongst other duties.{{cite web |last1=Ellis |first1=Luci |date=12 June 2019 |title=Watching the Invisibles |url=https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2019/sp-ag-2019-06-12-2.html |website=Reserve Bank of Australia |language=en-AU}} The Australian government's definition of "full employment" changes with the adoption of the NAIRU concept in the late 1970s, with the government now aiming to keep a sufficient proportion of people unemployed to stop low-unemployment-related inflation.{{Cite web |last=Australia |first=scheme=AGLSTERMS AglsAgent; corporateName=Reserve Bank of |title=The Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) {{!}} Explainer {{!}} Education |url=http://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/nairu.html |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=Reserve Bank of Australia |language=en-AU}}
• 1946 – The original drafters of the US Employment Act of 1946 intended for it to mandate full employment, however Congress ultimately gave it a broader pro-employment nature.{{Cite book |last=Ryan |first=James Gilbert |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_of_the_1940s/-t3Hx4ASLKUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Employment+Act+1946+full&pg=PA125&printsec=frontcover |title=Historical Dictionary of the 1940s |last2=Schlup |first2=Leonard C. |date=2006 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |isbn=978-0-7656-2107-8 |language=en}}
• 1948 – The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights' Article 23 includes "Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."{{Cite web |title=Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Human rights at your fingertips - Human rights at your fingertips {{!}} Australian Human Rights Commission |url=https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/commission-general/universal-declaration-human-rights-human-rights-your-fingertips-human |access-date=2022-12-01 |website=humanrights.gov.au}} It is ratified by most non-socialist countries.
• 1949–1997 – In the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1997, the "iron rice bowl" practice guaranteed employment for its citizens.
• 1978 – The US Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978 authorized the government to create a "reservoir of public employment" in case private enterprise does not provide sufficient jobs. These jobs are required to be in the lower ranges of skill and pay so as to not draw the workforce away from the private sector. However, the act did not establish such a reservoir (it only authorized it), and no such program has been implemented, even though the unemployment rate has generally been above the rate (3%) targeted by the act.{{Cite journal|last=Saulnier|first=Raymond J.|date=1977|title=A Critique of the Humphrey Hawkins Bill|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/58962803/|journal=Business Horizons|language=en|volume=20|pages=20–24|doi=10.1016/0007-6813(77)90084-2 |url-access=subscription}}
• 1998–2010 – The United Kingdom's New Deal was similar to Australia's Work for the Dole scheme, though more focused on young people. It was in place from 1998 to 2010.
• 2001 – The Argentine government introduced the Jefes de Hogar (Heads of Households) program{{cite web |title=Ministerio de Trabajo, Empleo y Seguridad Social |url=http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/75000-79999/75049/texact.htm |website=Ministerio de Trabajo, Empleo y Seguridad Social}} in 2001 to combat the social malaise that followed the financial crisis in that year.
• 2005 – Similarly, the government of India in 2005 introduced a five-year plan called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to bridge the vast rural–urban income disparities that have emerged as India's information technology sector has boomed. The program successfully empowered women and raised rural wages, but also attracted the ire of landowners who have to pay farm labourers more due to a higher prevailing wage.{{Cite journal|last1=Breitkreuz|first1=Rhonda|last2=Stanton|first2=Carley-Jane|last3=Brady|first3=Nurmaiya|last4=Pattison-Williams|first4=John|last5=King|first5=E. D.|last6=Mishra|first6=Chudhury|last7=Swallow|first7=Brent|date=2017|title=The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: A Policy Solution to Rural Poverty in India?|journal=Development Policy Review|language=en|volume=35|issue=3|pages=397–417|doi=10.1111/dpr.12220|issn=1467-7679|doi-access=free}} NREGA projects tend to be highly labour-intensive and low skill, like dam and road construction, and soil conservation, with modest but positive long-term benefits and mediocre management.{{cite journal |last1=Datta |first1=Polly |title=Attaining Sustainable Rural Infrastructure through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India |journal=Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance |date=2009 |pages=143–152 |doi=10.5130/cjlg.v0i4.1353|doi-access=free }}
• 2012 – The South African government introduced the Expanded Public Works Program (EPWP){{cite web |title=Expanded Public Works Programme |url=https://www.gov.za/about-government/government-programmes/expanded-public-works-programme |website=South African Government}} in 2012 to overcome the extremely high unemployment and accompanying poverty in that country. EPWP projects employ workers with government, contractors, or other non-governmental organisations under the Ministerial Conditions of Employment for the EPWP or learnership employment conditions.
• 2020 – The Public Employment Service (AMS) in Austria in cooperation with University of Oxford economists Maximilian Kasy and Lukas Lehner started a job guarantee pilot in the municipality of Gramatneusiedl (Marienthal).{{Cite web |date=2020-11-02 |title=World's first universal jobs guarantee experiment starts in Austria {{!}} University of Oxford |url=https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-11-02-world-s-first-universal-jobs-guarantee-experiment-starts-austria |access-date=2023-06-21 |website=www.ox.ac.uk |language=en}} The project's site became famous a century earlier through a landmark study in empirical social research when Marie Jahoda, Paul Lazarsfeld and Hans Zeisel studied the consequences of mass unemployment on a community in the wake of the Great Depression.{{Cite news |last=Szigetvari |first=András |date=2022-12-03 |title=Pilotprojekt im Marienthal: Wie eine Jobgarantie des AMS das Leben verändert |language=de |trans-title=PIlot project in Marienthal: How a job guarantee of the AMS changes lives |work=Der Standard |url=https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000141471055/pilotprojekt-im-marienthal-wie-eine-jobgarantie-des-ams-das-leben |access-date=2022-12-28}} The current job guarantee pilot returned to the site to study the opposite: what happens when unemployed people are guaranteed a job? The program offers jobs to every unemployed job seeker who has been without a paid job for more than a year.{{Cite journal |last1=Kasy |first1=Maximilian |last2=Lehner |first2=Lukas |date=April 2023 |title=Employing the Unemployed of Marienthal: Evaluation of a Guaranteed Job Program |url=https://stonecenter.gc.cuny.edu/research/employing-the-unemployed-of-marienthal-evaluation-of-a-guaranteed-job-program/ |journal=Stone Center Working Paper Series |issue=67 |doi=10.2139/ssrn.4431385|hdl=10419/272038 |hdl-access=free }} When a job seeker is placed with a private company, the Public Employment Service pays 100% of the wage for the first three months, and 66% during the subsequent nine months. Though, most of the long-term jobless were placed in non-profit training companies tasked with repairing second-hand furniture, renovating housing, public gardening, and similar jobs. The pilot eliminated long-term unemployment – an important result, given the programme’s entirely voluntary nature.{{Cite web |last=University of Oxford |date=2024-11-03 |title=How job guarantee programmes can eliminate long-term unemployment |url=https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/worlds-first-universal-jobs-guarantee-experiment-starts-in-austria |url-status=live |access-date=2024-12-31 |website=University of Oxford, Department of Economics}} Participants’ gained greater financial security, improved their psycho-social stability and social inclusion.{{Cite web |title=World's first universal job guarantee boosts wellbeing and eliminates… |url=https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/news/worlds-first-universal-job-guarantee-boosts-wellbeing-and-eliminates-long-term-unemployment/ |access-date=2023-06-21 |website=INET Oxford |language=en}} The study drew international attention{{Cite magazine |last=Romeo |first=Nick |date=2022-12-10 |title=What Happens When Jobs Are Guaranteed? |language=en-US |magazine=The New Yorker |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/what-happens-when-jobs-are-guaranteed |access-date=2023-06-21 |issn=0028-792X}} and informed policy reports by the EU,{{Cite web |title=Opinion Factsheet |url=https://cor.europa.eu/en/our-work/Pages/OpinionTimeline.aspx?opId=CDR-5490-2022 |access-date=2023-06-21 |website=cor.europa.eu |language=en-GB}} OECD,{{Cite web |title=OECD |url=https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=1112_1112680-u38fb4etmq&title=Building-inclusive-labour-markets-active-labour-market-policies-for-the-most-vulnerable-groups |access-date=2023-06-21 |website=read.oecd-ilibrary.org}} UN,{{Cite journal |last1=Schutter |first1=Olivier de |last2=Rights |first2=UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human |date=2023-04-18 |title=The employment guarantee as a tool in the fight against poverty :: report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Olivier De Schutter |url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4011274 |language=en}} and ILO.{{Cite web |last=Unit (JCPI) |first=Job Creation through Public Investment |date=2021-09-02 |title=Public Employment Initiatives and the COVID-19 crisis |url=http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/employment-intensive-investment/publications/WCMS_818473/lang--en/index.htm |access-date=2023-06-21 |website=www.ilo.org |language=en}} The program ended in 2024 and served as the basis for the European Commission's Social Fund + (ESF+) to provide 23 million EUR for further job guarantee pilots across Europe.{{Cite web |last=European Social Fund+ |date=2024-04-04 |title=Innovative Approaches Tackling Long-Term Unemployment |url=https://www.esf.lt/en/transnational-calls/innovative-approaches-tackling-long-term-unemployment-closed/1430 |access-date=2024-12-31 |website=European Social Fund+}}
• 2030 – In 2021, a report released by California governor Gavin Newsom's Future of Work Commission called for a job guarantee program in California by 2030.{{cite web|url=https://sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article249640183.html|title=Guaranteed work: California commission calls for government jobs program after pandemic|last=Park|first=Jeong|date=2021-03-03|publisher=Sacramento Bee|access-date=3 February 2024}}

• The European Youth Guarantee{{cite web |title=The Youth Guarantee |url=https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1079&langId=en |website=European Commission |language=en}} is a commitment by European Union member states to "guarantee that all young people under the age of 25 receive, within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education, a good quality work offer to match their skills and experience; or the chance to continue their studies or undertake an apprenticeship or professional traineeship." The committed countries agreed to start implementing this in 2014.{{cite journal |last1=ESCUDERO |first1=VERÓNICA |title=The European Youth Guarantee: A systematic review of its implementation across countries |journal=International Labour Office Research Department Working Papers |date=August 2017 |issue=21 |page=1 |url=https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_572465.pdf#page=8}} Since 2014, each year more than 3.5 million young people registered in the program accepted an offer of employment, continued education, a traineeship or an apprenticeship. Correspondingly, youth unemployment in the EU has decreased from a peak of 24% in 2013 to 14% in 2019.
• Sweden first implemented a similar guarantee in 1984, with fellow Nordic countries Norway (1993), Denmark (1996) and Finland (1996) following.{{cite journal |last1=Hummeluhr |first1=Niels |title=Youth guarantees in the Nordic countries |date=November 1997 |url=https://www.oecd.org/norway/1925599.pdf}}{{cite journal |last1=ESCUDERO |first1=VERÓNICA |title=The European Youth Guarantee: A systematic review of its implementation across countries |journal=International Labour Office Research Department Working Papers |date=August 2017 |issue=21 |page=2 |url=https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_572465.pdf#page=9}} Later, some additional European countries also offered this as well, prior to the EU wide adoption.
• Germany and many Nordic countries have long had civil and military conscription programs for young people, which requires or gives them the option to do low-paid work for a government body for up to 12 months. This was also the case in the Netherlands until 1997. It was also the case in France, and that country is reintroducing a similar program from 2021.
• Bhutan runs a Guaranteed Employment Program for youth.{{cite news|url=https://thebhutanese.bt/guaranteed-employment-program-going-strong-but-can-improve|last=Pem|first=Damchoe|title=Guaranteed Employment Program going strong but can improve |date=2015-09-12|work=The Bhutanese|access-date=3 February 2024}}

The Labour Party under Ed Miliband went into the 2015 UK general election with a promise to implement a limited job guarantee (specifically, part-time jobs with guaranteed training included for long-term unemployed youth) if elected;{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26506522|title=Labour extends jobs guarantee for long-term unemployed|work=BBC News|date=10 March 2014|access-date=6 January 2017}} however, they lost the election.

Bernie Sanders supports a federal jobs guarantee for the United States and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez included a jobs-guarantee program as one of her campaign pledges when she ran for, and won, her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018.{{cite news |last= Paddison |first= Laura |date= 6 July 2018 |title= What Is A Federal Jobs Guarantee? |url= https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/federal-job-guarantee-explained_n_5b363f4ae4b007aa2f7f59fc?ri18n=true |work= HuffPost |access-date= 3 March 2020}}{{cite news |last= Goldstein |first= Steve |date= 27 June 2018 |title= Jobs-guarantee idea gets new focus after Ocasio-Cortez victory |url= https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ocasio-cortez-victory-brings-renewed-attention-to-jobs-guarantee-idea-2018-06-27 |work= MarketWatch |access-date= 4 March 2020}}

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

• Centre of Full Employment and Equity
• Chartalism
• Full Employment Abandoned
• Flexicurity
• Guaranteed minimum income
• Involuntary unemployment
• Job security
• Modern Monetary Theory
• National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
• Natural rate of unemployment
• Non-accelerating inflation buffer employment ratio
• Kurzarbeit
• Universal inheritance

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Refbegin}}

• {{Citation

|last=Minsky

|first=H.P.

|author-link=Hyman Minsky

|year=1965

|title=The Role of Employment Policy

|postscript=, in M.S. Gordon (ed.), Poverty in America, San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishing Company.

}}

• {{Citation

|title=The Case for a Job Guarantee

|first=Pavlina

|last=Tcherneva

|author-link=Pavlina Tcherneva

|date=2020

|publisher=Polity

|isbn=978-1-509-54210-9

}}

{{refend}}

• [http://www.epwp.gov.za/ Expanded Public Works Program] of South Africa
• [http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2009/08/job-guarantee.html Job Guarantee: Introduction to and history of the concept]

Category:Economic policy

Category:Post-Keynesian economics

Category:Public employment

Category:Full employment

Category:Right to work

Category:Work relief programs