Are some sectors more “youth friendly” than others? Employment regimes,sectors, and gender disparities in the Great Recession

Despite national differences in youth employment, many countries share striking similarities in the uneven sectoral distribution of job opportunities for young women and men in Europe. A shift‐share analysis of European Labour Force data identifies “youth‐friendly” sectors, how this varies between countries, and how this changed during the Great Recession. This reveals how youth job opportunities were lost because the sector shrank or because employers were less likely to offer full‐time, permanent contracts. New jobs for youth were more likely to be in part‐time and temporary employment. Youth vulnerability to unemployment is contingent not only on employers' engagement with institutions shaping school‐to‐work transitions but also on gender segregation and to the fact that some sectors have been particularly fragile during the economic crisis. Future research needs to link institutional effects with employers' business strategies to understand how these shape job opportunities for young women and men.     

A Multiple‐Group Analysis of Associations Between Emotional Exhaustion and Supervisor‐Rated Individual Performance: Temporary Versus Permanent Call‐Center Workers

This study investigates whether contract type (temporary versus permanent employment) moderates the relationship between emotional exhaustion and supervisor‐rated individual performance. Most temporary workers desire permanent employment, and this may drive them to uphold performance also when strained. This hypothesis was tested with multiple‐group analysis in a sample of 430 call‐center operators from five Portuguese organizations from different sectors. The results show that emotional exhaustion related negatively to supervisor‐rated individual performance among permanent workers, but not among temporary workers. Our conclusion is that the relationship between emotional exhaustion and supervisor‐rated individual performance is conditional upon contract type. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Explaining cyclical movements in employment: Creative-destruction or changes in utilization?

An important step in understanding why employment fluctuates cyclically is determining the relative importance of cyclical movements in permanent and temporary plant-level employment changes. If movements in permanent employment changes are important, then recessions are times when the destruction of job-specific capital picks up and/or investment in new job capital slows. If movements in temporary employment changes are important, then employment fluctuations are related to the temporary movement of workers across activities (e.g. from work to home production or search and back again) as the relative costs/benefits of these activities change. I estimate that in the manufacturing sector temporary employment changes account for nearly 60% of the change in employment growth over the cycle. However, if permanent employment changes create and destroy more capital than temporary employment changes, then their economic consequences would be relatively greater. The correlation between gross permanent employment changes and capital intensity across industries supports the hypothesis that permanent employment changes do create and destroy more capital than temporary employment changes.     

The influence of calculative (“hard”) and collaborative (“soft”) HRM on the layoff‐performance relationship in high performance workplaces

We investigate the effect of employment systems on the layoff‐performance relationship. We construct a typology of two types of HPWS (Calculative or “hard” HRM and Collaborative or “soft” HRM) and two non‐high performance systems (Traditional HRM and Low HRM). We use attribution theory as a framework from which to draw hypotheses. We examine survey responses from two waves of panel data. We employ cluster analysis to identify distinctive configurations of employment practices used in UK workplaces. We use the cluster outcomes as explanatory variables in moderator regression analysis. Following layoffs, we find that Calculative workplaces experience lower subsequent performance than Collaborative workplaces. Over the next five years, Calculative and Collaborative workplaces experience equivalent amounts of performance change but Calculative workplaces fail to make a full recovery.     

The dynamics of repeated temporary jobs

The path to a permanent job often implies a sequence of temporary contracts, sometimes including periods of unemployment. This has usually been disregarded in previous studies on the transition from temporary to permanent employment. To account for these transitions, I apply multiple-spell duration techniques to an Italian dataset. I find that the probability of moving from a temporary to a permanent job increases with the duration of the contract, but decreases with repeated temporary jobs and especially with interruptions. This suggests that it is not temporary employment per se but the intermittence associated with it that is detrimental to employment prospects.     

“Offshoring”: How big an issue?

Spurred by the political debate in the US and several high-profile corporate moves, "offshoring" has become a lively topic of discussion. This paper by Grant Colquhoun, Keith Edmonds and David Goodger tries to put recent developments in context and argues that "offshoring" should be seen as part of a long-standing and largely beneficial trend of international specialisation. In the short term at least, the transfer of service sector activities abroad is likely to involve relatively small numbers of jobs when compared to overall UK employment and labour market turnover. However, specific areas — such as call centres, back office functions and software programming — are expected to be increasingly affected, impacting upon regions of the UK with heavy exposure to those activities and giving rise to adjustment costs. In contrast, retailing, hotels and catering and personal services could well benefit from the move of low value-added jobs abroad. Overall, the impact of "offshoring" on the UK economy in terms of output and productivity should be positive.     

Labour contract regulations and workers' wellbeing: International longitudinal evidence

All industrialized countries have employment protection legislation (EPL) for permanent workers and restrictions on the use of temporary employment (RTE). The (ambiguous) effects of these on the levels of employment and unemployment have been extensively studied, but nothing is known empirically about their wellbeing implications. Using longitudinal data from the European Community Household Panel, the author conducts the first study of the link between both EPL and RTE and workers' wellbeing. The results provide evidence that both permanent and temporary employees gain from reforms that ease restrictions on temporary employment but leave firing costs for permanent workers unchanged. This finding contrasts with common claims found in the political economy literature.     

Education and early career outcomes of second-generation immigrants in France

We estimate a flexible reduced form dynamic model of schooling choices and labor market outcomes in France. Our analysis focuses on the comparison between second-generation immigrants and their French-natives counterparts. We show that the gap in higher education attainments between those two sub-populations is mainly explained by parents' background, and that schooling investment is the main determinant of the gap in permanent employment. After conditioning on schooling and observed characteristics, we find that ethnic origin explains less than 6% of the gap in access to permanent employment. A test of equality of counterfactual probabilities of accessing permanent employment across ethnic groups (measured at identical individual characteristics) typically fails to be rejected.     

Dockers,Devlin and industrial disputes

Industrial conflict on the docks was for many years attributed to casual forms of employment. Consequently, the instigation of a more permanent employment relationship in 1967 was expected to bring industrial peace on the waterfront. However, empirical investigation reveals that ‘permanent’ employment has had little, if any, effect on strike activity.     

When Does the Stepping‐Stone Work? Fixed‐Term Contracts Versus Temporary Agency Work in Changing Economic Conditions

This paper emphasizes differences among short‐term contracts in terms of career prospects. Using French data over the 2002–2010 period, we rely on a dynamic model with fixed effects to disentangle state dependence from unobserved heterogeneity. Although fixed‐term contracts may provide a ‘stepping‐stone’ to permanent positions, temporary agency work is hardly better than unemployment in this regard. The Great Recession of 2008 has changed the dynamics on the labor market and amplified the difference between fixed‐term contracts and temporary agency work. For both types of temporary workers, providing overtime work does not significantly increase the transition to permanent employment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Labour Demand,Flexible Contracts and Financial Factors: Firm‐Level Evidence from Spain*

We estimate models of labour demand for a panel of 3,400 Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1985–2001. We examine the roles of fixed‐term contracts, financial factors and a policy reform in 1997 affecting permanent contracts by lowering payroll taxes and dismissal costs. Compared with permanent employment, the demand for flexible labour displays: (i) greater sensitivity to financial factors; (ii) greater cyclical sensitivity; (iii) a larger average wage elasticity; and (iv) less inertia. Our analysis of the 1997 policy reform suggests that a 5 percentage point reduction in the payroll tax is associated with an 8% increase in permanent labour demand.     

Repugnance for “menial jobs”

A man's sense of well-being and meaningfulness in work is not so much a matter of external circumstances—the kind of job he has—as it is of his deepdown belief that he is a worthy human being. If he lacks that, any job can seem dissatisfying and “menial.” Executives may suffer from this (or related behaviors) as much as assembly-line workers.     

How binding are legal limits? Transitions from temporary to permanent work in Spain

This paper studies the duration pattern of fixed-term contracts and the determinants of their conversion into permanent ones in Spain, where the share of fixed-term employment is the highest in Europe. We estimate a duration model for temporary employment, with competing risks of terminating into permanent employment versus alternative states, and flexible duration dependence. We find that conversion rates are generally below 10%. Our estimated conversion rates roughly increase with tenure, with a pronounced spike at the legal limit, when there is no legal way to retain the worker on a temporary contract. We argue that estimated differences in conversion rates across categories of workers can stem from differences in worker outside options and thus the power to credibly threat to quit temporary jobs.     

Sounding “Different”: The Role of Sociolinguistic Cues in Evaluating Job Candidates

An increasingly diverse labor pool has increased the likelihood that HR recruiters will encounter job seekers who speak with different dialects. Prior studies have investigated the effects of applicant dialect on employment selection outcomes. In this article, we merge this research with stereotyping, “modern racism,” and sociolinguistics literatures to formulate propositions surrounding two questions of interest: (1) Do prospective employers categorize job applicants using sociolinguistic cues? and (2) If so, what impact does this categorization have on evaluations of applicant employability? We believe this research can provide significant insights into HR practice as discriminatory behaviors change and adapt to fit social norms, particularly in employee recruitment and selection contexts. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

All of work? All of life? Reconceptualising work‐life balance for the 21st century

This paper argues that the study of work‐life balance to date has, in the main, adopted a restricted conception of both “work” and “life”, which does not take account of recent developments in life worlds, working arrangements and employment relationships. “Life” has hitherto been viewed as largely comprising caring activities for dependent children, whereas “work” has been premised largely on a traditional model of work, characterised by full‐time, permanent employment with one employer and a conventional understanding of what work involves. This means that extant research and theory only provides a partial view of the work‐life needs and experiences of the workforce. In the paper, we propose extending conceptions of both work and life to incorporate different life worlds and social groups and different working arrangements and employment relationships.     

A dynamic analysis of informal care and employment in England

This paper analyzes the dynamics in employment and informal care outcomes of women in England. To this end, we develop a dynamic model to describe pathways leading to a negative correlation between informal care and employment in a cross-section. The model allows for different types of caregiving, correlated permanent unobserved heterogeneity and initial sorting. The model is estimated on data from 6 waves of the BHPS 2000–2005. Our findings suggest modest feedback effects. We find a negative effect of co-residential caregiving on future employment and a negative effect of employment on future co-residential and extra-residential caregiving. We also find evidence of positive state-dependence in caregiving although most of the persistence in such activities is related to unobserved heterogeneity rather than state-dependence.     

The effect of strike replacement legislation on employment

Employers and employer groups often argue that restrictions on an employer's ability to use replacement workers during a strike reduce employment. This study analyzes provincial employment-to-population ratios for 1966–1994 and unionized bargaining unit employment growth rates for 1966–1993 to test for an impact of provincial strike replacement policies in Canada. A strike replacement ban that restricts the use of both permanent and temporary replacements is found to have adverse employment consequences. The results for reinstatement rights provisions (effectively banning permanent replacements) and professional strikebreaker bans are mixed.     

Temporary contracts and employee effort

Temporary contracts provide employers with a tool to screen potential new employees and have been shown to provide “stepping stones” into permanent employment for workers. For both reasons, workers on temporary contracts have an incentive to provide more effort than permanent employees. Using indicators for unpaid overtime work and absences taken from the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLFS), we present evidence that temporary workers indeed provide higher effort than permanent employees: Their probability of working unpaid overtime exceeds that of permanently employed workers by 60%. We show the heterogeneity of this effect across different types of temporary contracts, investigate differences between men and women, and discuss the relevance of endogenous selection into temporary employment.     

Examining policy configurations as conditions for long-term unemployment and non-standard employment in OECD countries using fuzzy-set analysis

This paper investigates how particular configurations of institutional conditions cause high rate of long-term unemployment and non-standard employment rate for 18 OECD countries during the period of 2001–2008. The paper aims to investigate how employment protection legislation (EPL), unemployment benefit and statutory minimum wages are associated with long-term unemployment and non-standard employment. Using the fuzzy-set analysis, the paper examines how the combination of policies matters in causing long-term unemployment and/or non-standard employment. The result suggests that a low level of statutory minimum wage can lead to high levels of non-standard employment in combination with either strict EPL for permanent workers or weak EPLs for temporary workers. The long-term unemployment rate is suggested to be high when there is strict EPL for temporary workers in combination with high levels of statutory minimum wage. This paper highlights the importance of examining multiple policies as configuration.     

Signaling,selection and transition: empirical evidence on stepping-stones and vicious cycles in temporary agency work

Despite the growing importance of temporary work agencies, the benefits they bring to temporary agency employees (TAEs) are still disputed, and empirical findings are, by and large, mixed. Using a unique dataset comprising almost 12,000 TAEs on their first and second temporary work assignments, this work aims at disentangling the consequences of temporary agency work on the level of the individual TAE in Germany. We find that temporary agency work assignments act as learning devices for employers about the underlying ability of TAEs. High ability employees can show their qualities and fit with the organization with the time spent on temporary work assignments, albeit at decreasing rates. In addition, we find that if a TAE is assigned to a subsequent project after the first one, it is less likely that the employee transitions into permanent employment. Hence, we conclude that a division exists among TAEs: where the high ability employee may find it a stepping-stone to a desired permanent position, and others get trapped in it and have a hard time transitioning into permanent employment.