Definition and Examples of Employer of Last Resort
– Colloquially refers to undesirable or low-paying work
– Can refer to employers who hire when no one else is hiring
– Examples include fast-food and retail industry jobs in the US
– Civilian Conservation Corps and military Keynesianism are examples of programs
– Argentina’s Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desempleados program is an example
Government as Employer of Last Resort
– Job guarantee is the main concept
– Various proposals have been suggested
– Urban Coalition proposed a scheme in the mid-1960s
– L. Randall Wray suggested federal work rules and a central register
– Marshall Auerback proposed hiring all unemployed workers
Criticisms of Employer of Last Resort
– Marshall Auerback’s proposal addresses potential flaws
– Impact on wages for existing jobs is a concern
– Administration would require a large and expensive state bureaucracy
Examples of Employer of Last Resort Programs
– Argentina’s Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desempleados program
– Acts as an employer of last resort for unemployed heads of households
Related Concepts
– Dead-end job
– Full Employment Abandoned
– Involuntary unemployment
– NAIBER
– National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employer_of_last_resort
Employers of last resort (ELR) are employers in an economy to whom workers go for jobs when no other jobs are available; the term is by analogy with "lender of last resort". The phrase is used in two senses:
- undesirable jobs, often private sector, which are only taken as a last resort;
- a formal government job guarantee program, where the government promises to act as employer of last resort, employing all comers.
The sense of a job guarantee program is used and advocated by some schools of Post-Keynesian economists, notably by authors of Modern Monetary Theory at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Levy Economics Institute (both United States) and in the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (Australia), who advocate it as a solution for unemployment.