In the UK the broad employment rate (including people not seeking work, students, homemakers etc) is the highest since the 70's. Yet wage growth has been much worse than in the US, and the rest of the EU barring Greece. So I think the story is a bit more complex than be explained by classic macroeconomic theory.
But if you are unemployed in the UK and relying on benefits to survive, if you try to negotiate salary and get turned down for a job offer your benefits will be sanctioned and you will have to rely on food banks for X weeks until the sanction expires, so negotiating on salary becomes a very risky proposition.
That is crazy. Negotiating Salary is just about the only place a worker as an advantage and can get ahead. I though all the anti-consumer and anti-employee laws were in the US.
Good point, also, there is a huge pool of skilled and unskilled workers in the EU to draw from, especially hard hit countries like Spain, Italy and Greece with stomach churningly high unemployment rates. Studies have claimed this has a negligible effect on wages, but I find it hard to believe.
