Sharing risk within and across countries: the role of labor market institutions

This paper studies the effect of labor market institutions on within- and cross-country risk sharing, using a model of international trade in risky assets modified to include a subset of agents, labor-owners who do not access financial markets, and employment security provisions. Labor market, institutions, by promoting within-country risk-shifting arrangements between agents with or without, access to financial markets, reduce the fluctuations of non-tradable labor incomes and amplify the, fluctuations of capital incomes. Capital flows become more volatile across countries, and if the, configuration of labor markets differs across countries, capital-owners bear the burden of systematic, undiversifiable world aggregate uncertainty.     

Exchange Rate Variability and Labor Market Performance in the Visegrád Countries

According to the traditional optimum currency area approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate. This paper takes a different approach and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may as well signal high costs for labor markets. Based on the paper by Belke (2003), the impact of exchange rate volatility on labor markets in the four Visegrád Economies (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic) is analyzed, finding that volatility vis-à-vis the euro significantly increases unemployment. Hence, the elimination of exchange rate volatility could be considered as a substitute for a removal of employment protection legislation.     

Fertility and female employment dynamics in Europe: the effect of using alternative econometric modeling assumptions

We investigate the direct and long‐run effects of fertility on employment in Europe, estimating dynamic models of labor supply under different assumptions regarding the exogeneity of fertility and modeling assumptions related to initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity and serial correlation in the error terms. We find overall large direct and long‐run effects of giving birth on employment probabilities, and these effects differ considerably across countries. We find that within countries the results are sensitive to the statistical assumption made on initial conditions, the inclusion of serial correlation and the assumption of strict exogeneity of children. However, the pattern across countries is robust to these assumptions. We show that such patterns are largely consistent with prevailing institutional differences related to the flexibility of the labor markets and family policies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employment protection

Employment protection legislation is generally blamed for reducing labor turnover and increasing the duration of unemployment. This paper argues that a proper evaluation of employment protection requires a model where there is need for it. The model in this paper gives an insurance role to employment protection in the absence of perfect insurance markets. It is shown that there is a role for both severance payments and advance notice of termination and that if they are chosen optimally, exogenous unemployment insurance does not influence equilibrium employment. Simulations show that if employment protection is chosen optimally, it does not reduce job creation when compared to an equilibrium without it.     

Managing multiple forms of employment in the construction sector: implications for HRM

The construction industry is one of the largest and most complex industrial sectors in the UK. The industry's failure to adopt progressive human resource (HR) practices is routinely blamed on the challenges of operating in a fragmented, project‐based environment reliant on subcontracting. This research examines the extent to which existing HR theory accounts for the particular employment context of project‐based organisations operating in volatile markets. Drawing upon case study research from two different divisions within a large contracting firm, this article explores the extent to which different contracting arrangements impinge on attempts to reposition human resource management (HRM) as a strategic function along the business partnering model. Elevating the role of the HR function is found to be difficult to reconcile with the concurrent demands of managing multiple forms of employment arrangements. The research reveals a need for HRM models that account for the specificities of complex, differentiated organisations that operate in multiple environments.     

Europeanization or globalization? Transnational wage bargaining and the distribution of activity in European labor markets

This paper investigates the impact of globalization on labor markets, in terms of wage inflation and the distribution of activity across regions. Specifically, we study the effects of aggregation in the labor markets on the distribution of employment and inflation pressures, where there are differences in market structures and transmission mechanisms underpinned by relatively immobile labor. To demonstrate these ideas, we take the European experience as a “laboratory” to show what can be expected from globalization in the labor markets in practice. Using models of wage leadership vs. locational competition, we examine the extent and strength of aggregation effects on labor market costs using a sample of data from 1983 to 2007 which covers the period of the creation of the Euro. We find that the aggregation effect has decreased significantly since the start of EMU, improving the trade-off between inflation and unemployment. At the same time, while Germany played an important role in the run-up to EMU in terms of wage leader, its role has now decreased and been replaced by globalization forces. This implies increased locational competition in terms of wage formation. We demonstrate this with the emerging role of the US as the benchmark for wage setting in Europe.     

The effects of labor supply shocks on labor market outcomes: Evidence from the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Since September 2000, as a result of mobility restrictions, the supply of Palestinian workers competing for local jobs in the West Bank has increased by about fifty percent. This paper takes advantage of this unique natural experiment to study the effects of labor supply shocks on labor market outcomes. Using quarterly information on wages and employment in each city in the West Bank, the paper analyzes the short-run adjustment of labor markets to a large inflow of workers separately from the effects of political instability. The results suggest that low-skilled wages are adversely affected by an increase in the supply of low- and high-skilled workers, while high-skilled wages are only weakly negatively related to an increase in their own supply. This is consistent with a scenario in which high-skilled workers compete for low-skilled jobs, pushing the low-skilled into unemployment. This latter hypothesis is confirmed by analyzing the effects of changes in labor supply on unemployment.     

Regulatory Effects and Strategic Global Staffing Profiles: Beyond Cost Concerns in Evaluating Offshore Location Attractiveness

The practice of offshoring—staffing all or part of a business outside the home country—has proliferated to such an extent that the question for most multinational corporations (MNCs) is where, not if, some or all of its labor forces should be located beyond geopolitical borders. It remains an open question, however, where and under what conditions the hoped-for advantages of offshore staffing are best realized. While cost savings continue to play the major role for most companies, both quality and availability of worker skills and administrative and regulatory contexts of labor markets have increasingly influenced global staffing decision processes. This paper has two purposes: to examine the extent to which employment laws and other regulatory factors can impact—beyond cost concerns alone—the decision where to offshore, and to offer a methodology for developing attractiveness profiles that can help governments, service providers, and MNCs evaluate and improve the match between staffing needs and labor market characteristics. By examining financial considerations in conjunction with administrative and regulatory effects, the parties can better manage ongoing expansion of offshore staffing arrangements beyond more established locations such as India, China, and Malaysia. Strategic implications of a trend toward nearshoring—relocating offshore operations closer to or within the home country—are also discussed.     

试论企业劳务派遣用工法律风险防范

劳务派遣用工是市场经济条件下产生并发展起来的新型用工形式,与传统用工模式在结构上有很大不同,具有用人与管理相分离的特征。文章试从劳务派遣用工模式的发展及当前存在的突出问题出发,深入剖析劳务派遣用工企业面临的法律风险,并提出应采取的有效防范措施,以应对当前的立法变革。     

Managing the Contingent Workforce—Gaining the Advantages, Avoiding the Pitfalls

Part-time employment arrangements constitute a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. labor force. Such employment arrangements offer advantages to both employers and employees. Part-time employees offer employers reduced wage and benefit costs, workforce flexibility, aid for special projects, replacement fill-ins and a chance to preview candidates for full-time employment. Part-time work enables employees to supplement family income, enjoy flexible hours as well as a change in job environment and a chance to substitute for full-time employment when there is no choice. The advantages of contingent employment come at a cost. Employers must comply with laws and give up control over much of the employment relationship in order to avoid co-employment status and to gain the benefits of contingent employment. Employees in contingent work arrangements frequently do not qualify for many of the benefits available to full time employees. Suggestions made for managing contingent workers may reduce some of the problems, but they would also remove some of the advantages.     

探索新形势下高校毕业生就业指导工作的新途径和新方法

近年来,由于高校毕业人数不断攀升以及用人单位用人标准的提高,高校毕业生就业压力不断增大。如果将高校视为人才工厂的话,那么高校必须不断改进其产品品质,适应市场需求,产销对路,才能促进高校的可持续发展。本文通过分析就业难的原因,找出高校在人才培养过程中存在的问题,并从专业设置、教学安排以及就业指导三方面提出提高就业质量的切实可行的途径与方法。     

Minimum wages,wages and employment in various sectors in Honduras

This paper contributes to our understanding of the impact of minimum wages on labor markets of developing countries, where there are often multiple minimum wages and compliance is weak. We examine how changes in more than 22 minimum wages over 1990–2004 affect employment, unemployment and average wages of workers in different sectors, defined by coverage under the legislation. The evidence suggests that minimum wages are effectively enforced only in medium and large-scale firms, where a 1% increase in the minimum wage leads to an increase of 0.29% in the average wage and a relatively large reduction in employment of ? 0.46%. We find that public sector wages emulate minimum wage trends but the higher cost of labor does not reduce employment there. There are no discernable effects of minimum wages on the wages of workers in small-firms or the self-employed; yet, higher minimum wages may create more unemployment. We conclude that (even under our upper bound estimate of the effect on the wages of workers) the total earnings of workers in the large-firm covered sector fall with higher minimum wages in Honduras, which warrants a policy dialogue on the structure and level of minimum wages.     

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.     

Labor market analysis for developing countries

This paper is about analyzing labor markets in developing countries, searching for both improved understanding and greater policy relevance. Following a five-part policy evaluation framework, the highlights of labor markets in developing countries are presented. Theoretical models with multiple sectors and segments and empirical analysis using different kinds of data are then reviewed. A brief concluding section addresses some priority research needs.     

On-the-job training and rigidity of employment protection in the developing world: Evidence from differential enforcement

This paper analyzes the causal effect between strict employment protection regulations and the firm incentive to invest in job training of their employees. We explore a large firm level data set across several developing countries and assume that the rigidity of labor regulations affects more the investment decision of firms that faces a rigid enforcement of labor regulations. Our findings show that differences across countries in the enforcement of more rigid employment protection regulation are associated with very small differences in the investment in job training across firms. This finding is robust across several specifications and samples.     

Self-employment and business cycle persistence: Does the composition of employment matter for economic recoveries?

Self-employment comprises an important share of employment in many countries, and tends to expand during downturns through higher inflows from unemployment. Furthermore, countries with higher self-employment shares exhibit lower cyclical output persistence. I build a business cycle model with frictional labor markets where individuals can be self-employed or salaried employed. I show that economies with larger self-employment shares exhibit faster economic recoveries. Differences in the ease of entry into self-employment as the economy recovers explain the contrasting cyclical dynamics. The model successfully captures the cyclical patterns of self-employment and the relationship between self-employment and output persistence in the data.     

Are specific skills an obstacle to labor market adjustment?

This paper shows that specialized education reduces workers’ mobility and hence their ability to cope with economic changes. We illustrate this point using labor force data from two countries having experienced important macroeconomic turbulence; a large economy with rigid labor markets, Poland, and a small open economy with increased flexibility, Estonia. We find that holding a vocational degree is associated with much longer unemployment duration spells and higher likelihood of leaving activity for older workers. We then build a theoretical framework in which young agents’ careers are heavily determined by the type of initial education, and analyze the transition to a new steady-state after a sectoral demand shift. Quantitative exercises suggest that the over-specialization of the labor force in Poland led to much higher and persistent unemployment compared to Estonia during the period of EU enlargement. Traditional labor market institutions (wage rigidity and employment protection) lead to an increase of the unemployment gap, but to a lesser extent.     

Towards a re-examination of work arrangements: An analysis from Rawls' Theory of Justice

Using Rawls' Theory of Justice, this paper critically examines the systemic fairness of work arrangements. The analysis suggests that the simultaneous use of different work arrangements, such as knowledge-based employment and contract work, often seems to conflict with the principles that, according to Rawls, would make them a fair manner of managing people in organizations. Possibly, this could explain the growing social debate and concern about the new modes of employment. This work underscores the need for researchers to develop a systemic and more critical view of the idea of justice in HR literature so that it can confront its critics and acquire greater social legitimisation.     

论高职高专英语教学的就业导向性

我国高职高专教育教学的主要目标就是培养应用型技术人才,而在就业市场竞争空前激烈的今天,能够具备一定的外语知识与能力的高职高专毕业生无疑可以占据一定的客观优势。然而,目前我国高职高专的英语教学还是缺乏明确的就业导向性。本文就是从就业市场对高职高专毕业生英语能力的客观要求入手,来探寻我国高职高专英语教学体系改革的发展方向和策略,从而最终提出了以就业市场为导向的高职高专英语教学具体而行之有效的方法。