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The Earnings of Tradespersons over the Business Cycle
Author(s) -
Corliss Michael Craig,
Lewis Philip E.T.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
economic papers: a journal of applied economics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1759-3441
pISSN - 0812-0439
DOI - 10.1111/j.1759-3441.2012.00173.x
Subject(s) - earnings , apprenticeship , investment (military) , dispersion (optics) , value (mathematics) , economics , business , labour economics , business cycle , demographic economics , accounting , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics , machine learning , politics , political science , computer science , law , keynesian economics
The article examines the changes in earnings and earnings dispersion of tradespersons over the business cycle since 1991 and the returns to investment into apprenticeship training. The main findings are that some tradespersons earn significantly more than the median earnings, but many do not, in particular food and agricultural tradespersons. For most trades the net present value suggests investment in apprenticeship training is worthwhile. However, this is not the case for all the trades, namely automotive, food and agricultural trades. Among tradespersons there is a very high degree of dispersion in earnings and this has increased over time. Further, there is evidence of significant gender difference in earnings. Finally, while the premium paid to qualified tradespersons relative to unqualified tradespersons has increased markedly over time, for older qualified tradespersons, younger tradespersons the premium paid to qualified tradespersons compared with unqualified tradespersons has declined considerably.