One of the bedrock principles of market economics is that as demand for labor goes up, so do wages. Lately, there has been evidence that this idea may no longer be true.
Two weeks ago, the labor ministry released figures showing that the jobless rate for April was only 2.8 percent. Moreover, there were 148 job positions open for every 100 people looking for work, the highest ratio in 43 years. During the high-asset bubble period of the late '80s, the ratio was slightly less — 145 positions for every 100 job seekers — and salaries were rising at a rate of 4 percent a year.
But the labor ministry reported that in 2016, wages across the board — regardless of whether we're talking full-time or part-time employment, regular or nonregular employees — only rose by 0.4 percent. Granted, it was the first time in six years that wages had gone up, but everything we learned in school tells us it should have gone up much more.