Unit labor costs reflect compensation levels and productivity gains in productivity can offset the effect of wage growth.

Indeed, despite a 1.3 drop in real wages in 2011, unit labor costs remained unchanged.

There is a vast difference between unit labor costs real wages adjusted for productivity in Germany and in the heavily indebted southern countries.

Persistently weak labor productivity growth has created a situation in which unit labor costs do not fall, even if real wages remain stagnant or decline. Indeed, despite a 1.3 drop in real wages in 2011, unit labor costs remained unchanged.

A rapid reduction in unit labor costs, through structural reforms that increased productivity growth in excess of wages, is just as unlikely.

After a decade that saw wages grow faster than productivity, unit labor costs (and the real exchange rate based on those costs) appreciated sharply.

Then a decade of nominal wage growth that out paced productivity gains led to a rise in unit labor costs, real exchange rate appreciation, and large current account deficits.

The adjustment might come about through wage increases in countries with lower labor costs, rather than cuts in countries where costs are too high.

Likewise, competitiveness losses have been partly reversed as wages have lagged productivity growth, thus reducing unit labor costs, and some structural reforms are ongoing.

Persistently weak labor productivity growth has created a situation in which unit labor costs do not fall, even if real wages remain stagnant or decline.

Unit labor costs have risen, and potential output growth has fallen.

Increased public sector wage costs mean increased government spending on wages.

The higher the wage cost, the lower the subsidy, until it has tapered off to zero.

In a monetary union, discrepancies in wage growth relative to productivity gains that is, unit labor costs will result in a chronic accumulation of trade surpluses or deficits.

Construction costs are estimated at ECU 8 billion (1992).

But improvements in productivity are easily overwhelmed by changes in wages. While productivity growth usually is measured in fractions of a percentage point, wage increases have been much larger.

Declining competitiveness is best captured in a single indicator unit labor costs, which measure the average cost of labor per unit of output.

The German solution to this conundrum keeping wage growth below that of productivity, thereby reducing unit labor costs took more than a decade to yield results.

How is this possible? After all, higher productivity should bring lower unit labor costs.

I. Reimbursement by the specialized agencies of their share of the costs of the Joint Inspection Unit 622

I. Reimbursement by the specialized agencies of their share of the costs of the Joint Inspection Unit

But such adjustments cannot happen in a monetary union, so unit labor costs are slowly re converging via a protracted process of flat nominal wage growth and slowly declining real wages (a process that would be quicker with higher inflation in Germany and Northern Europe).

(c) Wages

Reversing the large differential in unit labor costs that has emerged in the euro s first decade thus requires not only wage restraint and productivity enhancing reforms in the south, but also higher wage gains in the north.

The unit cost is estimated at 9,500 for a total of 100 units ( 950,000).

In fact, these solar power module costs have just fallen off the bottom of the chart.

Although Africa is the world's poorest region on average, wages in the formal economy generally exceed those paid in China and India, where government keeps basic food, housing, and transport costs relatively low through subsidies and controls.

Competitiveness, which is usually measured in terms of unit labor costs, is a relative concept.

In other words, since 1999, wage costs have increased by about 20 less in Germany than in southern Europe.

Determination of wages.

The best remedy is a subsidy for low wage employment, paid to employers for every full time low wage worker they hire and calibrated to the employee s wage cost to the firm.

Since the euro s introduction, unit labor costs have risen dramatically faster in France than they have in Germany.

When we talk about the opportunity cost of producing one more unit is sometimes called the marginal cost.

Governments could afford the cost of the subsidies since cutting unemployment would not only lower public security costs, but would also reduce the need for welfare programs.

Movements in minimum wages

Provision is made to cover the cost of medical and dental supplies required to equip an ambulance and set up an in house medical unit.

Unit labor costs in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy grew 20 30 faster than in Germany in the euro s first decade, and somewhat faster than unit labor costs in northern Europe as a whole.

Low wage competition has led to substantial outsourcing and off shoring activities that have kept German firms competitive by reducing their demand for domestic labor.

Since the implementation of the Pay Equity Act, progress has been made in closing the gap in salaries.

Wage determination and job evaluation.

For a small fee in America

This policy change was informed by the report of the Joint Inspection Unit on support costs (JIU REP 2002 3).

It recommends that an amount of 150,000 be authorized at this stage to cover the travel of the Stand by Forces Management Unit.

The high cost of employing workers in France is due not so much to wages and benefits as it is to payroll taxes levied on employers.

Specifically, a wage subsidy program that lowers the cost of hiring full time unskilled workers could make it more attractive for firms to hire them.