Dr Oliver Hartwich: Why New Zealand’s 'flexible' labour market fails on youth wages

When The New Zealand Initiative set out 235 recommendations for the next government last month, the one this paper chose for its headline was the proposal to pay younger workers less. The news sense was sound, because it is the recommendation that sounds least fair.

Paying a seventeen-year-old below the adult rate for what looks like the same work offends a plain sense of equal treatment. The Council of Trade Unions objected strongly, presenting it as a return to an older, harsher labour market, and on the face of it you can see why.