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WAGE  GROWTH
Wage growth is the increase in minimum wage over the year due to many factors such as cyclical and structural factors. In other words, the increase in salary of employees over the year. It is seen as a positive impact when there is a boost in wage growth rather than a fall in wage growth. However, in the real world, it tend to be different. An increase in wage growth will have a lot of shortage as well as the fall in wage growth. Wage growth has important implications to indicate the understanding of many economic aspects. This is why economists track wages closely and in detail due to the side effects of wage growth such as wage push inflation effects.

GLOBAL WAGE GROWTH
According to International Labor Organization (ILO)’s Global Wage Report[1], taking a sample of 136 countries, there is a fall of 0.6% in 2017. The report shows the UK wage growth has been stagnating between 2016 and 2017, this is weaker wage growth than other advanced countries. In comparison, the US wage growth has been progressing positively although it is not compatible to the expansion rates in South Korea, Deutschland and Australia in 2017.

Furthermore, advanced countries have experience decline in wage growth rate from 0.9% to 0.4% between 2016 and 2017[2], whereas wage growth in emerging and developing countries fell from 4.9% to 4.3%. Wage growth in advanced economies slightly increased by 9% while average wages in emerging and developing countries are three time more than the last 20 years.

WAGE GROWTH ANALYSIS
Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), wage growth has been slow across advanced economies. All states and territories have experienced substantial lower wage growth from 2002 to 2017. Cumulatively, wage growth has remained low while unemployment keeps on declining. This is due to the inverse relationship between unemployment and wage inflation. Holding the law of ceteris paribus, when the demand for labor is high and unemployment is low, it is expected that wage rates are supposed to rise quite promptly as firms are competing to offer wage above the minimum wage and a little above the common wage rates within the industries to be able to hire the most suitable and skilled labor. Meanwhile, firms and industries are uncertain to offer lower wages from common wage rates when demand of labor is low and unemployment is rising and wage rates will decrease slower. In theory, higher wages means higher employment as more people demand in higher wages, in contrast, it depends on the elasticity of demand and supply of labour that measure the responsiveness of demand and supply of labour to a change in the wage rate showing the determination of wages and the significant differences in wages that exist between individuals and occupations in society.

There is a comparison in showing the unemployment rate which is 3.7%[3], the lowest since the 1969 that might be due to the increase in wage that went up to 3.1%, the biggest increase over the 10 years making governments raising interest rates to offset the inflationary pressures however, it is more complex than it seems as tighter job markets, increase in minimum wage and rise in compensation costs of 2.5% add up to inflation pressures

SIDE EFFECTS OF WAGE GROWTH
Wage growth are often seen as one of the factor in declining employment as firms will have to operate with higher cost of production which is labor, causing firms to reduce the number of employees in order to stay on budget of production and may switch labor to automation. This is seen from the firms in the industry perspective. Whereas in the workers’ perspective, increase in wage growth leads to higher consumer spending and improve their living standards. In other words, they are able to afford more goods and services if prices of the goods and services do not change. In contrast to the firms perspective, the increase in minimum wage causes an increase in job demand.

Aside from influencing the decisions for individuals and firms, wage growth will have an effect on economic growth, aggregate demand and inflation. When employees gain in wage, they tend to have higher consumer spending which can cause multiplier effect. Higher spending will create the cyclical effect in which consumer spending helps firms to decide in supplying goods and services at the most favourable prices. When the supply increase and meet the increase demand of consumers, then it will boost the economic growth.

If we assume wage growth can cause greater unemployment, then this will have a negative impact on aggregate demand. It is debatable if wage growth can cause unemployment. In period of 2010 to 2017 unemployment declined by 4.5%[4] despite the rise in minimum wage. Therefore, in reality wage growth may have a positive impact on aggregate demand.

Furthermore, wage growth could cause inflation because of demand pull inflation and wage push inflation. Demand pull inflation is the result from excessive spending by workers and wage push inflation is due to higher cost for firms.

In contrast, slower wage growth might leave the economy better off. Research shows how over the year average worker received 5%[5] more of total compensation in benefits excluding non-monetary benefits. A real case from existing company which is Best Buy, the electronics retailer that adopt the non-wage compensation with the philosophy of having employees as their most important asset and prioritise their need to take care of family members. Thus, this keep pushing up the interest rates which the central bank is expected to increase between 2% to 2.5%.

WAGE DIFFERENTIAL
In determining wage growth, various contingent factors should be take into account, there might be some differences in wage structures that may be industrial, occupational, organisational and personal. Industrial and occupational differentials exist due to the requirement of various skill that can match demand and supply of customers and the business. Wages are usually fixed on the basis of skills required to perform a job. Thus, highly specialised jobs require employees with higher skills and lead to higher pay as well. Regional differentials show how wages are not equal across different regions in the same occupation group. This is depending on the cost of living and the ease of mobility in the country. Organisational differentials exist within the business this is due to their regulations in recruiting specific employees and the allowance to pay. Lastly, personal differential is about skill- based pay system, this is due to different people have different acquired skills despite of similar education background.[6]

Wage differentials impact the economy both in macro and micro levels. In micro level, wage differentials prove the strategy of organisations in recruiting specific employees and thus become trend setters in terms of recruitment and other human resource management practices. While at macro level, these differentials help to allocate human resources and non-human resources to determine the growth in the economic system. When a certain occupation offers higher wages, more individuals are finding jobs in that particular area as there are greater job opportunities.

GENDER PAY GAP
Wage inequality and differentials between gender are also an issue and have been a serious concern over the years. For decades, women have been discriminated in the workplace as women are seen as the weaker gender. Aside from underpaid, female employees often have to accept lower wages and having lower chance of being hired and less likely to get promoted. Despite of a better progress, this inequality still exist until today. ORACLE, the enterprise software company have been sued by the US department of Labour for discriminating by gender and people of colour, that cost around $400 million unpaid wages.

Furthermore, research shows women are getting paid less not only because of discrimination but also lack of experience. However, this is due to the lower chance of women getting promoted or even hired and women are also responsible for household that are restricting them to work more hours. In statistics, men worked an average of 41 hours per week while women worked 36 hours per week. Not only women earning less money, women who work fewer hours also gain less experience over time. A policy group found men's earnings increase at least 6% on average after having children because men are seen as the head of the family and are responsible for the financial giver of the family, in other words, "daddy bonus". While for women, they experience a fall of 4% on average in wage after having children might be due to the absence and less mobility of having children which is called as a "motherhood penalty".

Found in 2018 study, today's pay gap is due to the flexibility with people's personal life preferences and constraints.Found in 2018 study, today's pay gap is due to the flexibility with people's personal life preferences and constraints. As women and men make different choices on how they prefer to spend their time, workplace inflexibility are likely to harm women the most. Other factor could be due to how women and men want their work life to be, women are more into the comfort in workplace rather than the status.

Factors that explain wage inequality
1) Skills and qualifications:

The gap between poorly skilled and higher skilled workers remain persisted and growing each year. One reason is because the increase in demand for skilled worker is faster than demand for semi-skilled worker. Firms tend to pay higher skilled workers more than semi-skilled workers as firms have limited choices on higher skilled workers, firms wanting to achieve their goal and providing the best for their customers have to spend more including paying more on labour to be able to hire skilful workers in order to reach their goal. For jobs with limited skill requirements, supply is more elastic thus wages will remain low compared to jobs that require special skill which causes supply more inelastic.

2) Trade Union and collective bargaining power:

unions may exercise their bargaining power to offset the ability of associate degree leader in a very explicit occupation and therefore causing a mark-up on wages compared to those on supply to non-union members.

3) Marginal Revenue Product for Labor (MRP)

With the assumption of everything being equal, workers with higher productivity level should get higher pay. However, there are several assumptions to make in relation between the MRP and wage inequality which are: labour markets are flexible (e.g. workers are at ease in changing jobs and get higher paid jobs), there is a perfect information within the firms in the industry (e.g. worker knows other firms are able to pay higher per hour) and MRP is measurable (e.g. can measure how much the employee can produce per hour)

4) Geographical Differences

Different regions and different countries will have different wage rates as well as different minimum wage. This depends on the different living cost in different countries. Countries with higher living cost tend to have higher minimum wage and higher wage rate as workers should afford their needs for living.

[1] Taylor, Chloe (2018-11-27). "Global wage growth lowest in a decade as UK falls behind advanced economies". CNBC. Retrieved 2019-05-24.

[2] "Wage Growth in Advanced Economies". Reserve Bank of Australia. 15 March 2018.

[3] Cox, Jeff (2018-10-31). "Wages and salaries jump by 3.1%, highest level in a decade". CNBC. Retrieved 2019-05-24.

[4] "Effect of minimum wage on economic growth, inflation and AD/AS | Economics Help". www.economicshelp.org. Retrieved 2019-05-24.

[5] Appelbaum, Binyamin (2018-09-25). "One Reason for Slow Wage Growth? More Benefits". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-05-24.

[6] "Wage Differentials - Types and Implications". MBA Knowledge Base. 2013-07-17. Retrieved 2019-05-24.