University of Queensland
The Australian economy is currently characterised as two speed with a buoyant commodity and mining sector and lagging manufacturing and services sectors. This has resulted in a segmented labour market with the latter two sectors struggling to compete for labour with the former sectors. This paper analyses a unique data set of 12000 firms into their current labour market recruitment problems. The paper employs logit and duration analysis to determine the relative importance of wage and non-wage responses to labour shortages. A variety of questions were asked, within the survey including the size of the establishment (in terms of the number of people employed), the main business of the firm, if and how many jobs were advertised, the occupations advertised, the wage offer made in the advertisement, whether the job was filled, and how long the job took to be filled.