The Impact of Unemployment on Wages and Profits

Abstract

This work is devoted to an attempt to study the nature of the impact of unemployment on the level of wages and profits of enterprises. Based on Rosstat data on the unemployment rate, the average monthly nominal accrued wages of employees of organizations and the profitability of assets of industrial enterprises in the regions of the country, correlations of unemployment identified and linear regression models of these connections built. It been established that with a high level of unemployment, an increase in unemployment contributes to a decrease in wages; this influence is very small. At a low level of unemployment, starting from a level of less than 7–8%, the impact of unemployment on the level of wages begins to grow as the unemployment rate decreases until it reaches a value of 42–45% of the level of explanation of wages by the level of unemployment. This level of explanation observed at an unemployment rate of no more than 3–3.5%. If the unemployment rate does not exceed 3–3.5%, the degree of influence of unemployment on wages stabilizes and the decrease in unemployment determines the increase in wages by no more than 42–45%. Thus, the ideas about the wage curve and the Phillips curve are very simplified and do not reflect the complex nature of the influence of the unemployment level on wages. With a high level of unemployment, the growth of unemployment contributes to a decrease in the profitability of assets and, consequently, the profits of industrial enterprises. With an unemployment rate of no more than 4%, an increase in unemployment contributes to an increase in the profitability of assets and, consequently, the profits of industrial enterprises. Consequently, the idea that rising unemployment causes declining profits is overly simplistic and partly erroneous.