Question

Employment protection laws are implemented to protect workers' rights. Although, sometimes they have unintended consequences. Describe how employment protection laws could negatively impact the following types of workers:

A- young workers

B- workers who are already unemployed

Answer 1

Ans) Labour laws are intended to protect workers, so that they may earn decent wages and get humanitarian working conditions. For eg- FLSA ensures standard wages and overtime pay. Another is OSH Act.

However, the outcome of these acts are not as intended. It is because, these laws increases the cost for firms. And they respond by reducing the employment.

A) It affects young workers because firms, now, want to employ better skilled and more experienced workers due to increased costs. This acts as disadvantage for young workers and they find it hard to get jobs because they have no experience.

B) The workers who are already unemployed will also suffer because now, the job vacancies will reduce. Also, many firms which employ low skilled workers may shutdown due to reduced competitiveness, which further reduces availability of jobs.

Black markets can also come into play and unemployed workers will be forced to accept lower wage than the market wage, which will reduce their social status.