What is the usefulness of the competitive labor market model in explaining wage determination within contemporary real world labor markets?

I do not really think that this model has a great deal of
usefulness, at least in the short run.

In the short run, I believe
that wages are "sticky" or "rigid."  The competitive labor market model assumes that wages will
rise and fall easily as the supply and demand of labor changes.  However, because of union
contracts and other such factors, I do not believe that wages change so easily.  Please follow
the links for more discussion of this kind of factor.

However, the
model is generally useful for explaining why workers in some jobs earn more money than others
(because there is less supply relative to the demand in the higher-paid jobs).  It can also help
us understand why wages in some countries are higher than in
others.

Overall, then, I would say that it is not very useful in the
short run in individual labor markets but it is useful in the long term and in comparing labor
markets.