Wages have been stagnant across much of the west over the last 40 years. Economists have blamed globalisation, innovation and an ageing population but perhaps the source exists within the market itself. David Cabrielli, a Professor of Labour Law, argues that we need to inject more competition into our job hunt, to boost wages and tip the scales away from corporations.

The West is in dire need of a pay rise. Indeed over the last 30 years, pay has fallen against the cost of living. But why is this the case? In recent months, stories about nurses, junior doctors, ambulance workers, transport workers and teachers taking strike action have hardly been out of the media. Not just in the UK, but also in the US, France, Germany, and other nations internationally. Trade Unions have been making pay demands to offset this most recent rise in the cost of living. Most reporting has focused on this source of the demands alone. However, trade unions are also calling on employers to make good real-terms declines in wages that have been sustained over 40 years of low wage growth. The British Medical Association for example is calling for a 35% pay rise to return to 2008 pay adjusted for inflation. To understand why wages have stagnated, it is useful to focus on why and how a decline in living standards may occur. But this wage stagnation goes deeper than energy price inflation.