The Commission has established a forward agenda for its research program. Future research projects will help to fill gaps in current knowledge and expertise that exist about minimum wages issues and their impact on Australians. Areas of research being considered are:
- Labour substitution by age in Hospitality and Retail – will examine the extent to which younger and older workers are substituted in the production process. This project will focus on the low-skilled segment of the workforce and explore implications for the labour market competitiveness of junior workers. Researchers will survey the characteristics of businesses and employees in the Hospitality and Retail industries. The study will estimate labour-labour substitution elasticities econometrically and shed light on award/non-award employee substitution.
- Trainees and apprentices – this is a longitudinal study of transitions from school to work via training. It focuses on the competitiveness of trainees and apprentices for employment with adult employees, the supply of and demand for trainees and apprentices.
- Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) analysis of minimum wages – will analyse the effects of the Commission’s first three decisions on the economy (relative to business as usual) and include second round and flow-on effects, not captured by partial equilibrium techniques. The project aims to untangle these effects which are influenced by labour-labour substitution and capital-labour substitution, and draw on more detailed information concerning wage-setting practices.
- The effects of the minimum wage ladder on labour market flexibility – will explore the economic effects of multiple minimum wages or Pay Scales.
- The effect of early labour force experience on the longer-term labour market outcomes of young workers – will focus on employment and/or unemployment in the early period after leaving school, including job characteristics.
- Micro data linking minimum wages to employment, prices and profits – will draw on the ABS Business Longitudinal Database to examine the effects of minimum wages at the level of individual businesses.
- Education and labour mobility – relates the up-skilling of low-skilled workers to occupational mobility patterns.
- Monitoring the impact of the special Pay Scale for employees with a disability in business services – monitors the impact of wage-setting decisions for employees with a disability in the business services sector, in particular the introduction of the Special Business Services Pay Scale.