西方失业理论及其借鉴意义

西方经济学的各个流派在研究失业问题过程中都形成了各自有所侧重的失业理论与就业政策，借鉴这些理论与对策建议对解决我国面临的失业问题有重要的意义。     

对马克思就业理论的再认识

我国的失业问题是严峻的经济、社会问题,这与传统社会主义经济理论将失业问题作为资本主义社会特有的经济现象大相径庭.重新认识马克思的就业理论,有利于人们正确看待和解决我国当前的失业问题.     

完善我国失业统计指标体系的构想

失业问题一直是人们关注的社会热点问题,在我国就业形势严峻的今天,更需要加强对失业状况的监测.因此,完善失业统计指标体系,对研究确定国家或地区失业规模和构成以及预测未来失业状况有重要意义.本文借鉴国际劳工组织经验,对失业统计指标体系进行了全面的构建,并提出了完善失业统计指标体系的相关建议.     

浅谈我国就业的城乡统筹战略——基于刘易斯模型和托达罗模型

就业问题是关系国计民生的重要问题,我国面临着城市失业与农村大量剩余劳动力现象并存的局面,如何转移农村劳动力是我们现在面对的最迫切问题.基于发展中国家情况出发的发展经济学就业理论不一定完全适合我国,结合我国国情和发展经济学的就业理论,我国应城乡统筹,多途径、多层次吸收农村剩余劳动力和解决城市失业问题,统筹城乡就业.     

青岛市当前失业状况分析及对策研究

青岛市目前就业形势严峻,失业状况严重,如何认识当前失业现象,采取怎样措施应对失业问题成为令我们不容忽视的课题。本文将针对此问题,基于青岛市失业状况现状,从经济结构、人口结构等角度分析,提出应对失业问题的对策、建议。     

城镇失业治理中的政府责任研究

就业问题事关社会安定和人民生活,政府治理失业势在必行。本文在分析我国城镇失业问题的现状与特点、指出政府在治理失业问题中存在不足的基础上,提出了强化政府自身责任,采用多种对策治理城镇失业问题的建议。     

从失业到就业,难在哪里

2007年1月10日,国务院常务会议讨论并原则通过了《就业促进法》草案。草案经进一步修改后,将由国务院提请全国人大常委会审议。这是我国政府在解决失业问题上采取的重大举措。本文作为一家之言,对我国当前失业特征、就业矛盾和应对策略做了认真探讨,相信会对《就业促进法》草案的审议提供有益的思考。     

马克思相对过剩人口理论与当前我国的失业问题

马克思相对过剩人口理论是是资本主义生产方式和经济制度的必然产物和结果。从我国当前的失业现状来看,相对过剩人口不仅仅是资本主义社会独有的社会现象,也是我国社会化大生产和市场经济发展的必然产物。本文从马克思相对过剩人口理论出发,具体分析了我国当前的失业现状、原因,提出了具体的应对策略,对于解决目前的失业问题具有重要的理论价值和现实意义。     

城乡收入差距对城镇失业的影响及对策分析

当前我国城乡收入差距日益扩大引发了庞大的乡-城人口流动,在一定程度上加剧了城镇的高失业状况.正确认识这种状况,需要运用适当的理论,予以科学的分析.利用托达罗模型对此现象进行了理论分析,并利用格兰杰因果关系检验方法对城乡收入差距加剧我国城镇失业问题进行了实证检验,最后提出了短期内利用新农村建设缓解我国城镇失业压力的政策措施及建议.     

浅析我国大学毕业生失业的类型

大学生失业同时具有总量性失业、结构性失业和摩擦性失业的特征,是一种混合型失业。要从多角度解决大学生失业问题,从总量性失业角度,要采用积极的宏观政策,扩大劳动需求量;从结构性失业角度,推动就业能力导向的高校教育改革,提高大学生就业能力;从摩擦性失业角度,完善劳动力市场,促进供求双方顺利匹配。结构性失业和总量性失业是目前我国大学生就业政策的重点目标。     

How low can U go?

• ? Although there is growing evidence that wage growth is building in response to low and falling unemployment in the advanced economies, there is scope for unemployment rates to fall further without triggering a pay surge.
• ? For a start, current unemployment rates in comparison to past cyclical troughs overstate the tightness of labour markets. Demographic trends associated with the ageing ‘baby boomer’ bulge have pushed down the headline unemployment rate – unemployment rates among older workers are lower than those of younger cohorts. And in a historical context, Europe still has a large pool of involuntary part‐timers.
• ? In addition, rising participation rates mean that demographics are less of a constraint on employment growth than widely assumed. In both 2017 and 2018, had it not been for increased activity rates (mainly for older cohorts), unemployment would have had to fall more sharply to accommodate the same employment increase. We expect rising participation rates to continue to act as a pressure valve for the labour market.
• ? Finally, unemployment rates were generally far lower during the 1950s and 1960s than now. If wages stay low relative to productivity, as was the case during that prior era, employment growth may remain strong, with unemployment falling further. In the post‐war era, low wages were partly a function of a grand bargain in which policy‐makers provided full employment in return for low wage growth.
• ? There is evidence to suggest that many post‐crisis workers have opted for the security of their existing full‐time job and its associated benefits despite lower wage growth, rather than change job and potentially earn more; the rise of the ‘gig economy’ has led some workers to value what they already have more. Put another way, the non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) has fallen. So, the role of labour market tightness in pushing wage growth higher may continue to surprise to the downside.

     

The Low‐Pay No‐Pay Cycle: Are There Systematic Differences across Demographic Groups?

We investigate transitions between unemployment, low‐paid employment and higher‐paid employment using dynamic panel data methods applied to household panel data. We find state dependence in both unemployment and low‐paid employment and evidence of a low‐pay no‐pay cycle. However, we also find significant differences in effects across population subgroups. Typically, the young and better‐educated face lower penalties from unemployment and low‐paid employment. Further, low‐paid employment is preferable to unemployment for women regardless of their demographic characteristics, but for men who have only completed secondary schooling, low‐paid employment actually decreases the chances of entering higher‐paid employment by more than does unemployment.     

The myths and realities of structural change in the UK labour market

Recent discussion of developments within the UK labour market has highlighted the growth of more 'flexible' types of employment: part-time work, temporary jobs, and self-employment. The structure of employment has also been shifting – away from manufacturing and manual employment and towards the service sector and non-manual employment. In this article, Peter Robinson argues that these are not new developments and in some respects the pace of structural change in the labour market has slowed down. Together with evidence that the labour market is now adapting successfully to earlier structural changes, this bodes well for the prospect of further gradual reductions in unemployment.     

The effects of job-search motives and coping on psychological health and re-employment: a study of unemployed Hong Kong Chinese

We examine the influences of job-search motives and coping behaviours on psychological well-being and re-employment on 104 unemployed Hong Kong Chinese within a longitudinal context. Participants were tested on two different occasions separated by eight months. Results indicated that, at the first survey, use of coping strategies predicted higher psychological well-being while higher financial hardship was associated with decreased mental health. Results of ANOVA indicated that participants who scored high in employment commitment at the first survey were more likely to regain employment subsequently. Contrary to prior findings reported in studies with Western samples, psychological well-being was not affected by employment status at the follow-up survey. The psychological well-being of participants deteriorated from the first to the second survey. These findings point clearly to the significance of psychological factors in determining the response of Hong Kong Chinese to job loss. Implications of these data for future unemployment research among Chinese are discussed.     

人工智能时代我国就业公平的挑战及其应对

人工智能在提高经济与发展效率的同时,也引起了人们对失业风险的担忧。基于就业公平的视角,本文从就业的地区公平、行业公平以及群体公平三个视角分析了人工智能时代下就业公平可能面临的挑战。研究表明,人工智能可能会加剧我国就业的地区间、行业间以及群体间的不公平。鉴于此,需加强公共就业服务均等化,发挥公共就业服务的就业支持功能,促进就业的地区公平;需增强失业保险的发展性与调剂性,发挥失业保险的就业促进功能,促进就业的行业公平;需提高就业救助的独立性与完整性,发挥就业救助的就业保护功能,促进就业的群体公平。     

The effects of wage compression on unemployment and on the intersectoral distribution of employment: a dynamic model

A two-sector economy is modeled in a dynamic general equilibrium framework. If the steady state emerging in the absence of a minimum wage exhibits unemployment, the imposition of a binding wage floor lowers employment in the service sector without affecting employment in manufacturing. The wage differential between the two sectors shrinks and the quality of the service improves, but unemployment increases. In contrast, if this steady state exhibits full employment, a binding (but relatively low) minimum wage may bring about a more egalitarian income distribution and upgrade the quality of jobs in the service sector, without creating unemployment.     

Designing employment subsidies

The paper examines the relative effectiveness of two policy proposals in reducing unemployment and working poverty: hiring subsidies and wage subsidies. The hiring subsidies are targeted exclusively at the unemployed and are provided only for a limited period of time. The wage subsidies, on the other hand, are granted to all low-wage earners regardless of their employment history and are of limitless duration. Our analysis indicates that the relative effectiveness of the two policies depends on workers' prospective wage growth. The more upwardly mobile workers are (i.e. the more their wages rise with employment duration), the more effective will unemployment vouchers be relative to low-wage subsidies. Conversely, the greater the danger that workers come to be trapped in dead-end jobs with flat wage profiles, the more effective will low-wage subsidies be relative to unemployment vouchers.     

A ‘lost decade’ for pay may be a taste of things to come

• ? The failure of pay growth to respond to falling unemployment is less of a puzzle when allowance is made for structural changes in the jobs market. But the same developments make it hard to see where a pay revival will come from.
• ? In real terms, the average weekly wage in the UK is below the level of 10 years ago, an unprecedentedly poor performance. This is despite joblessness dropping to a 42‐year low and employment at a record high.
• ? The responsiveness of pay to falling unemployment has dwindled. A shift towards less secure forms of employment, the tightening up of eligibility for benefits and the consequences of globalisation have all made workers more compliant and less willing and able to push for higher wages.
• ? The result has been a decline in the ‘equilibrium’ rate of unemployment. The Bank of England currently judges this rate to be around 4.5%. But that earnings growth is so subdued despite unemployment being in line the Bank's estimate suggests that the sustainable rate of joblessness may well be much lower.
• ? With unemployment forecast to plateau at current levels, the odds of a revival in pay growth look slim, despite possible upsides from strong corporate profitability and rises in the National Living Wage. This would not be a new development – a secular decline in earnings growth has been apparent over the last 30 years in both nominal and real terms, with pay growth in successive periods of economic expansion failing to return to pre‐recession norms.
• ? This suggests that a serious revival in pay growth is unlikely to happen without the economy operating at significantly higher pressure and with a substantially lower unemployment rate. But this would require a recognition of, and a more accommodative policy response to, the historically weak economic expansion since the financial crisis. Neither seems likely.

     

Spell durations with long unemployment insurance periods

This paper uses data from a natural experiment to investigate the potential incentive effect of a fixed unemployment insurance period. We compare two large groups of Norwegian unemployed persons who registered as unemployed in 1990 and 1991. The last group was affected by a rule change that in practice extended the length of unemployment benefits to more than 3 years. Our data are taken from official records, and we construct unemployment durations by combining information from the unemployment registers with employers' records. We use a proportional hazard model with a flexible baseline. The results suggest that the main effect of benefits running out is to make people drop out of the unemployment register. We find neither clear evidence that the hazard into employment increased when the end of benefits approached in the pre-liberalisation group, nor that behaviour in this part of the spells changed after the reform. On the other hand, our results suggest that the reform had an all over negative effect on the employment hazard.     

Demographic and education effects on unemployment in Europe

We analyse the effects of demographic and education changes on unemployment rates in Europe. Using a panel of European countries for the 1975–2002 period - disaggregated by cohort and education - we empirically test the economic effects of the “baby bust” and the “education boom”. We find that structural shifts in the population age structure play an important role and that a significant share of variation in unemployment rates is also attributable to educational changes, the latter being usually neglected in aggregate studies. Results show that demographic and education shocks are qualitatively different for young (adult) workers as well as for more (less) educated people. Changes in the population age structure are positively related to the unemployment rate of young workers, while have no effect on adults. Conversely, changes in the education structure show a negative effect on the unemployment of the more educated. Labour market institutions also influence unemployment rates in different ways. Employment protection for regular workers increases unemployment rates, while temporary employment provisions reduce it. Unemployment benefits are found to have a displacement effect on unemployment, while corporatism of wage bargaining improves employment performance.