01899cas a2200241 a 4500 AALejournalIMF015585 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781513504100 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Bakker, Bas. Employment and the Great Recession : The Role of Real Wages / Bas Bakker. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2015. 1 online resource (60 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students This paper argues that the sharp increase in unemployment in a number of advanced countries during the Great Recession was not just cyclical (the result of a lack of aggregate demand); the degree of adjustment of real wages and the impact this had on labor productivity also played a role. In many countries, post-2007 employment losses were modest, as real wages adjusted when the economy slowed down. But in some countries real wage growth stayed too high for too long. The result was large-scale labor shedding, which boosted labor productivity but also contributed to a sharp rise in unemployment. In this context, the paper discusses the different experiences of the UK (where employment increased) and Spain (where it fell sharply), and finds that almost two thirds of the employment losses in Spain resulted from the failure of real wages to adjust adequately. Mode of access: Internet IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2015/229 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2015/229/001.2015.issue-229-en.xml IMF e-Library