Job guarantee is low-skill work, no training or skills can be required before.

Sawyer (2003: 894) asks “how does … [the ELR wage] … compare with the productivity of the workers involved?” He then proceeds with a surprisingly neoclassical-inspired human capital analysis of three situations each of which compares the implied productivity of the JG job (q) to the ‘true’ productivity of the worker in an alternative job (Q). Where q < Q, the general case according to Sawyer (2003: 894) because “ELR jobs are low-skill, low-productivity jobs”, “underemployment replaces unemployment”. The design of jobs under a JG has to ensure the positions are accessible to the most disadvantaged workers in the labour market, for it is they who typically bear the brunt of unemployment. In that sense if productivity resides in the individual (as in human capital theory) as opposed (more realistically) to being the outcome of a complex mix of individual characteristics, team-based collaboration, on-the-job training, and job design and management, then it is highly likely that q will approximate Q, for most individuals who will rely on JG employment for anything other than short transitional unemployment.