Much has been written about us being in the grip of that most unholy of phenomena – high employment. We’ve got employment coming out of our ears in the UK, which seems good, at first glance. But Guru has two words for you: Wage Inflation.
Fortunately, the Germans don’t live in such troubled times – they’ve got enough unemployment for everyone. Their jobless figures stand at about 10% (or 5.2 million people), while for elder workers aged 55 to 64, it is 71%.
This has given rise to a plan, which but Guru can’t help but applaud.
Jobdumping.de was set up by the aptly named Fabian Low, and lets employers advertise vacancies at the maximum salary they are willing to pay.
Would-be employees log on and take turns to undercut each other, bidding for lower and lower pay rates, until the most desperate job-seeker wins the job.
Workers can also put their CVs on the site, together with a minimum wage they will work for, and employers can bid for the privilege of employing an individual. Guru can’t see too many employers choosing this second option.
Low is something of a counter-revolutionary and clearly not a friend of the unions when he makes statements such as: “Wage costs, compared across an inter-European level, are unreasonably high in Germany. They have to be completely renegotiated.”
It has been said that the site is ‘eBay for the working world’ on one hand, and that ‘it smacks of slavery’ on the other. For the critics, Guru has another two words: Free Market.
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