Comment by brainwad
8 hours ago
In Switzerland the problem is the cheap foreigners commute over the border from Italy or France, and drive down the going rate for labour to levels where it's then unreasonable for people who actually live on Switzerland to do those jobs. This is especially the case in Ticino.
Sounds like they need min wage increase then.
If the labor supply is flexible (which is the case being discussed here with foreign workers commuting to Switzerland), then increasing wages will tend to increase the number of potential workers, but it won’t create additional jobs.
Meaning that if you are able to get a job yes you’ll get paid more, but because there are now more people competing for the same number of jobs you’re also less likely to get a job.
That's fine, the complaint is that the wages are too low. It's not that there are no jobs. In the case of Switzerland its not even that, the unemployment and the wages are both fine which results in people being able to work in those jobs and build a life in Switzerland and making the country overcrowded thus 10million population limit was proposed. What the Swiss demanded was that the workers go away once they finish the work, they did not demand shitty jobs for their kids.
The differential cost of living will always mean that for any wage, the job is more attractive to cross border commuters.