Employer_of_last_resort
Employer of last resort
Least desirable employment option of workers in an economy
Employers of last resort (ELR) are employers in an economy to whom workers go for jobs when no other jobs are available; the term is by analogy with "lender of last resort". The phrase is used in two senses:
- undesirable jobs, often private sector, which are only taken as a last resort;
- a formal government job guarantee program, where the government promises to act as employer of last resort, employing all comers.
The sense of a job guarantee program is used and advocated by some schools of Post-Keynesian economists, notably by authors of Modern Monetary Theory at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Levy Economics Institute (both United States) and in the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (Australia), who advocate it as a solution for unemployment.