Monash University’s David McCloskey has released a new report for The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI) examining the impact of open market policies and reforms on the structure of Australia’s jobs and industries over the Census periods from 2006-2016.
Calls for more reform and more labour market deregulation are based on the idea that they will promote improvements in productivity, better allocation of resources to productive sectors of the economy, and will lay the foundation for future economic prosperity.
However, these ideas are mistaken according to McCloskey. While nominal economic growth has been achieved the policies have had perverse outcomes. High productivity sectors, such as manufacturing have experienced a structural decline of 60%, while there has been a boom in low productivity jobs (both high and low wage) in people servicing industries.
