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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18914
September 2026
Minimum Wages and Worker Retention: The Roles of Labour Concentration and Employment Protection

How are incumbent workers impacted by minimum wage increases? Is labour market concentration an important moderating factor? We address these questions by presenting a new model, drawing on comprehensive employer-employee matched panel data from Portugal, and considering individual mandated wage rises from both national and collectively bargained minimum wages. We find that employment protection plays a key role in these effects: workers under permanent contracts are almost completely insulated from the exit hazards associated with wage bites while workers in temporary (fixed-term) contracts are exposed to these hazards. Labour concentration can significantly reduce negative effects on temporary workers, by up to 60\%. A model of monopsonistic competition with firing costs rationalises these patterns.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer-ext@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Network Coordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

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