This paper analyzes the relation between long-run growth and unemployment induced by efficiency wages and minimum wages within an innovation-based growth model. The growth-unemployment trade-off is linked to intersectoral wage differentials generated by sector-specific impacts of wages on labor productivity. Efficiency-wage unemployment (growth) is the higher, the greater the labor-employment share of the high-wage sector (research sector). The importance of wage differentials for the growth-unemployment trade-off is preserved when differentiating between skilled and unskilled labor. Higher minimum wages for unskilled labor raise growth and unskilled unemployment while possibly reducing unemployment of skilled labor.