Forum Post: Can we get to full employment this way?

Full employment (or to more precise, a 3-5% real unemployment rate) in in the United States has been a long sought after goal. A possible way to achieve this goal would be a National Jobs Bank where the private sector along with help from government wage subsidies can quickly re-employ the unused workforce.

The government would create an online Jobs Bank where private employers may hire an unemployed worker at a wage discount from the market labor price, with the discounted portion of the wage to be paid by the government. An internet based database of resumes that could be searched or browsed by employers with a real time system of bidding on wage discounts would be relatively easy to set up. This is superior to the unemployed worker receiving unemployment benefits and/or going on welfare, food stamps etc. It will bring in tax revenue to offset or even eliminate the cost of the program when you consider savings to the social safety net programs.

This must be a temporary subsidy, but it would be beneficial to companies by having a low-cost way of training and/or evaluating an employee’s performance before permanently hiring that employee at the full market wage. At the end of the subsidy the employer might decide the employee is productive enough to pay the full wage, or negotiate a wage with the employee. There must be checks in place to prevent abuse of this program by employers dismissing long term employees to obtain new wage-discounted employees.