Baltimore, MD. The line started forming at 4 a.m. By 8 a.m. there were over 3,000 people in the line snaking around Amazon's fulfillment center. Despite 85-degree heat and equally high humidity, these people were willing to stand in line for hours, just for a chance to land a job at Amazon's local fulfillment center. By the end of the day, over 4,500 job-seekers had applied for the 1,200 jobs Amazon had posted, which pay wages of around $14 an hour. Amazon held similar job fairs in 11 other cities around the nation, promising to hire as many as 50,000 new employees. Source: News accounts of August 2-4, 2017.
a. What was the apparent market surplus at the Amazon job fair?
b. If Amazon increased wages to $16 per hour, what do you predict will happen to that market surplus?