Originally posted by: Kibbo
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: slipONflange
Originally posted by: Dissipate
To answer the question, no one benefits from overtime laws. All they really do is make people have to work multiple jobs in order to get enough hours.
I disagree, I feel I benefit. I don?t like to work more than 40 a week and if I have to I feel I should be compensated for it. I don?t live to work.
Oh yeah you "feel" benefit but that is illusory. Ever heard the phrase "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"? The idea that capitalists can be forced to pay up to wage earners with no negative benefit to the wage earner is a myth. That money doesn't just come out of nowhere, and it certainly just doesn't come out of the pocket of your employer. Everyone suffers as a result of these laws.
Any situation where the employee would experience more trasition costs (unemployment) than the employer (interview costs, ads, etc.) grants effective market power to the employer. I would bet that most low-skilled labour would fall into this situation. In this case, the employer could "encourage" the worker to work more hours for less pay than the employee would consent to do in a purely competitive situation. This would be inefficient, by definintion. Overtime laws are one way to resolve this inefficiency.
These laws could lead to hiring more workers than neccessary, in order to reduce the risk to the employer, which could conceivably lead to the underemployment scenario you described, but payroll taxes and administrative costs of hiring would likely limit this from becoming epidemic. That is a question of magnitude, however, for which I have no data.