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This study addresses the dearth of research on what enables firms’ performance in the context of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). We investigate how I4.0 shapes the effects of firm investments over time and whether the effects of people and equipment depend on innovative management approaches. A longitudinal multi-sector study is conducted of 157 export-oriented, manufacturing firms in a European Union member state (Slovenia) over a 14-year period (in total, consisting of 1791 total observations). The findings suggest that firms which invest more in technology complement these costs by making investments in people, which over time leads to a higher firm performance. The I4.0 phase moderates this mediated relationship in that firms more advanced with respect to engaging in I4.0 tend to lower their human resources costs despite investing in technology while still showing a superior firm performance. This indicates the substitution effect of technology vis-à-vis human resources. The moderation of management innovation proved to be weaker, calling for a detailed look at its nuances across the studied levels. Taken together, our paper contributes in advancing the stream of research focused on internal factors and processes specifically related to firm investments and management processes, thereby leading to the outcomes of new technology use and capitalization. The findings highlight the link between I4.0 and technology management, and innovation, and complements the existing research on the link between management innovation and performance by contextualizing it within I4.0’s new technology and socio-economic changes.

As many studies on other crops showed an acropetal decline of fruit-set and fruit size in the inflorescence, this paper investigates the effect of flower position in spikelets in the '˜Sukkary' variety of date palm on fruit-set and final fruit weight. Also studied was the best time to apply strand-cut (bunch cut) as an alternative to hand thinning, to increase final fruit weight. Hand thinning is a labor cost operation and worker productivity operation is one adult tree per day maximum. To study fruit-set in relation to fruit position, three types of pollen were used to pollinate female trees: new pollen harvested in March 2018, pollen stored for one year at room temperature (25-35° C), and pollen stored for two years at room temperature. Four weeks after pollination, fruits aborted and those non-aborted in every bunch were counted. Recording was done in every spikelet from proximal to distal. To study the effect of fruit position in spikelet on fruit weight, fresh pollen was used to pollinate 'Sukkary' females. Every two days, fruit weight was measured from pollination to harvest, and fruit growth pattern was drawn. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out for the final fruit weight in every spikelet part. This investigation showed no pattern in fruit-set or in final fruit weight when using new pollen. When pollinated with old pollen that was one and two years old, the proximal '˜Sukkary' flowers of the spikelets showed less fruit-set compared to those of the middle and distal part. This basipetal decline is explained by low viability of old pollen, combined with the basipetal opening of the spathes in date palm...

В статье представлен анализ состояния современного российского рынка труда, в том числе, в условиях санкционного давления. Авторы предложили свое рассмотрение социально-экономических и социально-правовых аспектов регулирования рынка труда в условиях западного санкционного давления и вызванные этим обстоятельством процессы трансформации рынка труда, на примере принимаемых органами государственной власти системных решений. Системность, по мнению авторов, просматривается в тех решениях, которые принимались и принимаются сегодня органами государственной власти с учетом условий, которые порождаются санкциями. В тоже время авторы полагают, что необходимо осуществить серьёзные настройка институциональных механизмов регулирования рынка труда, выработки эффективных механизмов регулирования в условиях санкционного давления., The article presents an analysis of the state of the modern Russian labor market, including under the conditions of sanctions pressure. The authors offered their consideration of the socio-economic and socio-legal aspects of labor market regulation in the context of Western sanctions pressure and the processes of transformation of the labor market caused by this circumstance, using the example of systemic decisions taken by public authorities. Consistency, according to the authors, is seen in those decisions that have been and are being made today by public authorities, taking into account the conditions that are generated by sanctions. At the same time, the authors believe that it is necessary to carry out serious adjustments to the institutional mechanisms for regulating the labor market, to develop effective regulatory mechanisms in the face of sanctions pressure., Экономика и предпринимательство, Выпуск 3 (152) 2023, Pages 544-549

In northern Canada, due to the harsh weather and high labor cost, contractors prefer to using modular construction approach to complete heavy industrial projects, where mobile crane are used for onsite module installations. In current practice, module lifts are often planned manually by rigging engineers. With a large number of heavy lifts to be analyzed per project, the planning process is tedious and error prone. This paper represents a data-driven crane management system with three features: (1) identification of design errors in lifting planning; (2) responses to design changes; and (3) dynamic 3D trajectory-based lifting visualization. It covers two types of crane operations: pick from a fixed location, and pick and walking operation. This developed system helps reduce lifting time and improves safety and quality, where various lifting scenarios need to be analyzed. The system has been implemented at a collaborator company for demonstration and validation.

El objetivo de esta investigación es identificar los determinantes que estimulan la inversión extranjera directa (IED) en Ecuador entre 2002 y 2017. Mediante estimaciones de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios y un modelo de vectores autorregresivos (VAR) se comprueba empíricamente que el grado de apertura de la economía y la productividad del trabajo se relacionan positivamente con la IED, lo que indica que las inversiones de las empresas transnacionales (ET) están orientadas a la estrategia de búsqueda de mercados y eficiencia. Mientras tanto, fueron menos importantes el producto interno bruto, la inflación el tipo de cambio real y el costo laboral.

The main motive of this study is to evaluate the adaptation of the form of public-private organization to cost control. The empirical analysis for this research includes time-series data from 2008 to 2019 for the EcoHigjiena company by comparing its costs when it was a publicly owned company with the costs over the time the company entered into the partnership agreement. The findings of the study show that public-private ownership is a critical factor in determining total costs of the company by reducing total costs by 10%. The control variables (such as landfill within the municipality, wages and maintenance costs, number of customers and number of employees) for this study also showed significant and robust relationships in the total costs of the company. Wage expenses are an important indicator in increasing the total costs of the company by increasing them by 1.12%, which means that for every employee in the company, total cost decrease by 0.49%. Disposal costs contribute to a 0.25% increase in total costs. The number of clients is statistically important when viewed from an economic perspective, its impact on total costs is not high, or, in other words, there is no implication because for each client of the company, total expenses increase by 0.002%.

This paper exploits a payroll tax reform in Norway and applies matched employer–employee register data on individual wages to study the incidence of payroll taxation. The contribution is to allow for heterogeneous wage effects of payroll tax cuts based on unobserved worker ability and firm productivity (measured by estimated worker and firm fixed effects, respectively). Using the difference-in-difference approach, the estimates show that on average, about 30% of the labor cost reduction is shifted to employees through higher wages and the degree of tax shifting increases gradually during the first 3 years after the reform. Among high-productivity firms, the degree of tax shifting is stable at 40–50% throughout the post-reform period. In low-productivity firms, none of the labor cost reduction is shifted to employees in the short term, but there is a delayed wage response in the medium term. On average, the wage effect of reduced payroll taxes is twice as large in high-productivity compared to low-productivity firms. The difference in wage response is mainly between firms, rather than between workers within firms, although low-ability workers in low-productivity firms miss out on the wage gain from the reduced labor costs. The analysis does not find any robust employment effect of the payroll tax cut, neither in low- nor in high-productivity firms.

This paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment in the Southern Central Coast (SCC) region of Vietnam over the period 2007–2016 by a spatial econometric approach. The estimation results show that FDI inflows in the SCC region are attracted by the cheap labor cost of the host province, and provinces that own national seaports have great advantages in attracting FDI, confirming the vertical FDI form in the SCC region. Interestingly, skilled labor force in the surrounding provinces has a positive impact on FDI inflows in the host province. In particular, regarding the role of local institutional quality, the estimation shows that the legal institutions and level of social security in the host province play important roles in attracting FDI.

A continued robust growth of Vietnamese apparel enterprises has showed that they do notplay the auxiliary but the main role in the national industry. However, in general, the apparel industryin Vietnam has not met the practical requirements. In order to provide overall performance evaluationand how to achieve efficiency systematically, this study utilizes DEA approach to determine theperformance levels of 15 Vietnamese apparel industry enterprises and assess their efficiency.Specifically, we have applied output oriented model, which aims to maximize outputs while the inputsproportions remain unchanged to realize DEA efficiency analysis. CCR-based and BCC-based modelsare utilized to get overall technical and pure technical efficiencies. The findings show that havingbusiness transactions with foreign partners, good labor cost management and effective inventorymanagement are the most prominent factors in distinguishing between efficient and inefficiententerprises in Vietnam's apparel industry. The study may be a useful tool for managers to improvetheir performances and effectively allocate resources.

The purpose of sentiment classification is to solve the problem of automatic judgment of text sentiment tendency. In the sentiment classification task of online reviews, traditional deep learning sentiment classification models focus on algorithm optimization to improve the classification performance of the model, but when the sample data for manually labeling sentiment tendencies is insufficient, the classification performance of the model will be poor. The deep learning sentiment classification model based on weak tagging information, on the one hand, introduces weak tagging information into the training process of the model to reduce the use of manually tagging data. On the other hand, weak tagging information can represent the sentiment tendency of reviews to a certain extent, but it also contains noise, the model reduces the negative impact of the noise in weak tagging information in order to improve the classification performance of the sentiment classification model. The experimental results show that in the sentiment classification task of hotel online reviews, the deep learning sentiment classification model based on weak tagging information has superior classification performance than the traditional deep model without increasing labor cost.

The objective of current investigation is to minimum the labor cost of staffs by using PI-LP and MI-LP. The price of tour is Rs.2000 for origin city and Rs.3000 for flight is in another city, rather than its origin city of tour. The price of tour is Rs.10,000 which is obtained in both the models. The method can also be used in mechanical engineering for transporting Problems and maximization problems.

The main purpose of the study was to determine the extent of use of fish farming practices by the fish farmers. This study was conducted at three unions named Hapania, Kirtipur, and Tilakpur of NaogaonSadarupazilla under Naogaon district. Ninety-two (92) fish farmers were randomly selected as sample from an updated list of 120 fish farmers. Data were collected by a pre-tested interview schedule during 20th September to 20th October 2020. Simple and direct questions with different appropriate scales were used to obtain information. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis was used for the present study. Slightly above half (53.3 percent) of the fish farmers had medium use of fish farming practices, while 42.4 percent fish farmers had high use of fish farming practices, and only 4.3 percent fish farmers had low use of fish farming practices. Thus, overwhelming majority (95.7 percent) of the fish farmers had medium to high use of fish farming practices. Pond size, fish farming experience, cosmopoliteness, and extension contacts of the respondents had significant positive contribution with their use of fish farming practices. Coefficients of other selected variables namely age, education, family size, annual income, and knowledge on fish farming didn’t have any significant contribution with their use of fish farming practices. ‘Lack of government support’ emerged as the 1st ranked problem as per opinion given by the fish farmers (77.17 percent). The least problem as per opinion given by the fish farmers was ‘High labor cost’. Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.7(3): 565-576, December 2020

Labor has an important contribution in the structure of farm costs. The labor can come from within and outside the farming family. This study aims to determine the contribution of labor from within the family to vegetable farming with four different cropping patterns in rainfed lowland land and its effect on farming profits. The research was conducted in Pondok Kelapa District, Bengkulu Tengah Regency from May to October 2019. There are six vegetable cropping patterns in Pondok Kelapa District, namely (1) cucumber - paria - long beans, (2) cucumber - gambas - long beans, ( 3) cucumber - long beans - long beans, (4) long beans - pariah - long beans, (5) long beans - luffa - long beans, and (6) long beans - long beans - kale pulled - pulled kale. Data were collected through a census of 50 vegetable farmers, namely 42 people in Pekik Nyaring Village and 8 people in Srikuncoro Village related to the input and output of vegetable farming which were then analyzed descriptively using the structure of farm costs and the R / C ratio. The results showed that the contribution of labor costs from within the family to the six cropping patterns was between 38.84 - 61.36% with an R / C ratio between 1.55 - 1.94. The highest labor contribution was obtained in cropping pattern 6, namely 61.36% with the lowest R / C ratio value of 1.55. However, if the family labor cost is assumed not to be taken into account the farm input costs, then the R / C ratio value in cropping pattern 6 is the highest, which is 4.06.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the current status of Olive flounder(Paralichthys olivaceus) aquaculture in Jeju, and to evaluate economic effectiveness based on the investigated current aquaculture situations. For the analysis, 59 flounder aquaculture farms in jeju Island are surveyed. Based on the production and management investigation results, it was shown that the survival rate was averaged to be 54.5%, the cost was higher in the order of feed cost, depreciation cost, and labor cost. The average profit margin ratio was 23.1%. Result of the economic analysis shown that, NPV and IRR of the Olive flounder aquaculture were 17.9 hundred million won and 16.0% respectively.

Jones's (2000) celebrated book has inspired a generation of work devoted to understanding the causes and consequences of outsourcing. While much of this work has focused on the outsourcing versus domestic production decision of the firm, with labor cost-saving as the key driver for outsourcing, we further explore how preference-based outsourcing may arise in a dynamic world equilibrium. We address this problem in a North–South model in which the outsourcing decision depends not only on labor costs but also on information about local preferences that arise with outsourcing. As the South develops, demand for manufactured goods becomes more important, so identifying specific tastes of Southern consumers matters more. As a result, preference-based outsourcing displaces cost-saving outsourcing. Our quantitative analysis indicates that, as both agricultural and manufacturing technologies grow over time, the dynamic world equilibrium switches from the export regime to the cost-saving outsourcing regime, and eventually to the preference-based outsourcing regime.

This paper contrasts real exchange rate (RER) measures based on different deflators (CPI, GDP deflator, and ULC) and discusses potential implications for the link—or lack thereof—between RER and external balance. We begin by documenting patterns in the evolution of different measures of RERs, and confirm that the choice of deflator plays a significant role in RER movements. A subsequent empirical investigation based on 35 developed and emerging market economies over 1995 to 2014 yields comprehensive and robust evidence that only the RER deflated by ULC exhibits contemporaneous patterns consistent with the expenditure-switching mechanism. We rationalize the empirical findings by introducing a simple model featuring nominal rigidity and trade in intermediate goods as the one in Obstfeld (2001) and Devereux and Engel (2007), which is shown to generate qualitatively identical patterns to empirical findings.

Since the delivery of different pig sizes at a same time leads to loss profits, the management of pigs to be grown up uniformly is an important task in pig farms. Therefore, automatic sorting system of pigs by size has been introduced. In our proposed system, camera is used to measure the size of pigs. Camera detects the image of a pig and pig’s size is estimated using computer vision technique. The estimated size is used to select the adequate foods for the pig. The novel mechanism that leads the pig to the adequate direction for the feeding is introduced. The proposed mechanism works robustly in the poor environment of a pig farm. It works satisfactorily without disturbing the feeding cycles of pigs in the farms. The system reduces the labor cost and enables the efficient feeding cycles on considering the size of a pig. The weight is also estimated from the size. Experimental result shows the performance of the weight estimation.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been recognized as critical components of a broad genomic regulatory network and play pivotal roles in physiological and pathological processes. Identification of disease-associated lncRNAs is becoming increasingly crucial for fundamentally improving our understanding of molecular mechanisms of disease and developing novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Considering lower efficiency and higher time and labor cost of biological experiments, computer-aided inference of disease-associated RNAs has become a promising avenue for facilitating the study of lncRNA functions and provides complementary value for experimental studies. In this study, we first summarize data and knowledge resources publicly available for the study of lncRNA-disease associations. Then, we present an updated systematic overview of dozens of computational methods and models for inferring lncRNA-disease associations proposed in recent years. Finally, we explore the perspectives and challenges for further studies. Our study provides a guide for biologists and medical scientists to look for dedicated resources and more competent tools for accelerating the unraveling of disease-associated lncRNAs., Graphical Abstract, Identification of disease-associated lncRNAs is a significant and challenging task in biomedical research. This study presents an overview of computer-aided inference of lncRNA-disease associations and provides a guide for biologists and medical scientists to look for dedicated resources and more competent tools for accelerating the unraveling of disease-associated lncRNAs.

Although numerous linear regressions have been conducted to identify driving forces of farmland investment, this study uses panel threshold techniques to explore the nonlinear effects of resource endowment, labor cost, and other potential influencing factors on China's investment in farmland in 40 foreign countries during the period 2008-2016. Results show that increased resource endowment promotes China's investment in overseas farmland, but the correlation gradually weakens in magnitude as levels increase. A lower labor cost attracts greater Chinese investment in farmland, but the degree of influence declines with the continued increase in labor cost. Further, host country corruption, infrastructure level, and urbanization ratio have significant negative impacts on investment, whereas an increase in China's overall economic power significantly increases overseas farmland investment. Policy implications are proposed with respect to implementing environmental responsibility in host countries, creating comprehensive risk assessments, and optimizing the structure of overseas investment portfolios.

Harvesting and transportation represent a substantial proportion of the labor cost of a plantation. Additionally, it involves continuous production of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) by oil palm to the difficulty in mechanizing process that depends very much on skilled observations. Moreover, it entails relatively long travelling distances between palms and the need to transverse terrain within the field. Although various methods are used to collect and transport FFB after harvesting, the physical shape, size, and operating characteristics of a machine/transporter should enable an operator to perform the necessary cultural task in an oil palm plantation. Thus, this project proposed a six-wheel drive with four-wheel steering (6WD with 4WS) transporter machine equipped with a grabber to assist an operator in loading FFB into the bucket, and the elevated discharge mechanism could optimize the use of labor. Based on the maximum 6WD with 4WS transporter capacity of 5.8 tons h−1 and the prototype cost rounded up to the nearest number (i.e., RM 72500.00), the expected in-field collection-transportation operating cost using the machine was RM 4.83 ton−1. As a result, the cost saving of RM 1.03 ton−1 was obtained with the 6WD with 4WS transporter compared to a mini tractor-trailer.

The possibility of managing labor costs through the relationship between the wage Fund, revenue and profit from sales is investigated

Purpose The primary objectives of this study are to (1) highlight subsectors and industry groups of the construction sector that are most vulnerable to weather-related disasters (with highest labor cost escalation) and (2) analyze how immediate this labor wage escalation happens in different subsector of the construction sector. Design/methodology/approach The research methodology consists of three steps: (i) integrating various data sources to enable measurement of the county-level labor wage changes following large-scale weather-related disasters; (ii) measuring postdisaster labor wage changes at the county level; and (iii) comparing amount and timing of postdisaster labor wage changes among all sub-sectors (and industry groups) of the construction sector. Findings The results show that among the three construction subsectors (Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction subsector, Construction of Buildings subsector, and Specialty Trade Contractors sub-sector), Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction subsector is the most vulnerable to weather-related disasters. The industry groups under the Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction subsector showed the same vulnerability level; however, under the Construction of Buildings subsector, Industrial Building Construction industry group showed to be the most vulnerable; and under the Specialty Trade Contractors subsector, the Building Foundation and Exterior Contractors industry group is the most vulnerable. The results also showed that in approximately 75% of the damaged counties, there were increases in wages of all construction labors, over the following three quarter after the disasters. In average, labor wages in Construction of Buildings subsector and the Specialty Trade Contractors subsector decreased by 0.6% and 0.8%, respectively, in the quarter of disaster and gradually increased by 4.4% and 4.6%, respectively, in the following three quarters. On the other hand, Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction’s labor wages did not experience this decrease right after the disasters; wages increased immediately after disasters hit the counties and continually increased by 8.6% in three quarters after the disasters. It is expected that the results of this study will help policy makers, cost estimators and insurers to have a better understanding of the post-disaster construction labor wage fluctuations. Originality/value This study is unique in the way it used construction labor wage data. All data are location quotient, which makes the comparison among the affected counties (with different construction size) feasible.

The article systematizes and analyzes the list of resources for IT companies. A causality diagram between model variables by the software product complexity was built on the basis of dependencies between the time and the number of specialists involved in the development of software products, as well as company performance indicators. The nature of causal relationships between the model variables in terms of the software product labor intensity is presented. Using the VenSim simulation system, a simulation model for determining optimal labor standards for IT companies was built. The results of evaluating the adequacy of the model for determining optimal labor standards are presented. The optimal labor standards by labor intensity levels are determined, at which the efficiency of using the technical, technological, information, labor, and financial resources of the company increases and the profitability of activities for IT companies is maximized. A methodological approach has been presented, which outlines the cost standards of innovative labor of IT companies’ specialists. The developed approach is aimed at determining the time and number of an IT company specialists who, due to the impact on the efficiency of using information, technical, labor and financial resources, provide the necessary level of profitability of the IT companies’ activities. The advantages of the developed methodological approach to rationing labor costs in IT companies are presented.

Because the construction industry is labor-intensive, predicting the number of workers is important for estimating various factors that influence construction, such as the construction worker fatality rate and construction financing plan. In South Korea, the number of full-time workers is estimated based on the total construction cost; however, this estimation method does not reflect the characteristics of specific construction types. This study presents a simple model that uses real data to predict the number of construction workers and calculates correction factors in two ways to improve reliability. This study involved three steps: (1) collecting data, (2) calculating and validating the estimated labor rate, and (3) calculating correction factors. The model predicted the number of workers with an average error rate of 7.60% without correction factors. To improve reliability, this research suggests two-way correction factors, and the results show that correction factor one reduces the average error rate to 0.06% and correction factor two reduces the average error rate to 0.00%. The proposed model can be used for estimating project costs and predicting construction worker fatalities for a project.

Labor regulations are important determinants of resource allocation, productivity, and labor market outcomes. They can protect workers’ rights, enhance job security, and improve working conditions. However, overly restrictive regulations can also increase business costs, becoming barriers to creating formal employment, particularly for vulnerable workers. This paper analyzes the key characteristics of labor market regulations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and benchmarks them against international practices. The main objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses in the regulations and to inform governments about policy options to enhance employment outcomes in the region. The paper focuses on labor laws and regulations concerning hiring, working hours, minimum wage, redundancy rules and cost, unemployment insurance, labor tax and social security contributions, and legal frameworks affecting women’s work. This paper finds that the region has generally flexibly hiring rules, but that redundancy regulations are relatively rigid and costly compared to international practices. Statutory minimum wages and labor taxes are not very high, with the exception of a few countries. Although many countries have made efforts to remove legal barriers for women workers, discriminatory laws still restrict their participation in the labor market. While labor market regulations vary by country, the findings suggest areas where there is clear scope to improve the design and implementation of labor market regulations to facilitate stronger formal labor demand and to enhance efficient resource allocation; and at the same time, to strengthen compliance to provide necessary protections to workers.

This article explores the relationship between labor costs and price inflation under two conditions. Firstly, with linear assumption and classical techniques. Secondly, without assuming linearity, by a novel non-parametric machine learning method, namely gradient boosting. With quarterly data from 1996 to 2022 for V4 countries, we find linear and non-linear dependency between labor cost and price inflation. However, the magnitude of the connection is country-specific and changes over time. Our findings indicate that a significant linear relationship between considered variables does not lead to the higher predictability power of labor cost in a non- parametric model, which predicts inflation. Even opposed, the Czech Republic, the country with the highest correlation between unit labor cost(ULC) and deflator, shows better prediction in a case when the ULC is not in the set of independent variables. This fact highlights the importance of non-linearity for the inflation model.

This work investigates the impact of COVID-19 on the Italian manufacturing industry, testing whether the recovery measures introduced by the government were effective in alleviating the economic consequences of the virus in 2020. In particular, this work aims to address the impact of COVID-19 on the Italian manufacturing industry, and evaluation of the adopted recovery measures. Considering the current situation, with the war in Ukraine and the related gas crisis across the European Union, such investigation on policy relief is even more relevant, contributing to the current debate. Adopting RE models, and considering the latest economic and financial information available, we analyzed active private limited firms in the Italian manufacturing industry between 2019 and 2020, investigating the impact of layoff on their productivity (i.e., Total Factor Productivity) and profitability (i.e., Return On Assets), as well as their expected probability of default. According to the results of these regression models, and assuming 8 weeks of layoff, we observed an increase in productivity (between 1.20% and 1.59%), a decrease in profitability (1.47%) and an increase in bankruptcy risk (2.27%). Hence, the relief policy was not able to alleviate the economic consequences of COVID-19 for these firms, even though the layoffs were able to support their productivity. Practical implications concern the necessary improvements for the above relief policy, i.e., interventions to support the demand of manufactured products, interventions to support the digitalization of services, interventions to support the remote working, and interventions to support the introduction of innovative products on the market.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) represents a novel bio-origin nonomaterial with its unique properties having diverse applications. Increased market demand and low yield are the major reason for its higher cost. Bacteria belonging to Komagataeibacter sp are the most exploited ones for BC production. Development of a cost-effective bioprocess for higher BC production is desirable. Though static fermentation modes have been majorly employed for BC production using tray fermenters, agitated mode has also been employed successfully with air-lift fermenters as well as stirred tank reactors. Bioprocess advances in recent years has led BC production to an upper level; however, challenges of aeration requirement and labor cost towards the higher end is associated with static cultivation at large scale. We have discussed the bioprocess development for BC production in recent years along with the challenges associated and the path forward.

Analyzing the recessive impacts of farmers’ livelihood transformation on the surging labor cost in grain production is conducive to finding optimization paths for grain production. This study developed the Residual Livelihood Ratio (RLR) and the Livelihood Simpson Index (LSI) to measure the transformation of farmers' livelihood in China, and applied the multiple regression model to explore the influence of the transformation of farmers' livelihood on the labor cost of grain production. The results show that because of the soaring increment in labor cost, the net profit of rice, wheat, and maize production decreased largely in China. The LSI increased, while the RLR decreased, which indicated that farmers’ livelihoods transitioned towards a more unbalanced income–expenditure but more flexible employment. The Residual Livelihood Ratio, the mechanization input, the grain yield per unit area, the non-grain plantation degree, and the non-agricultural land use degree showed negative impacts on labor cost in grain production, whereas the Livelihood Simpson Index and Engel’s coefficient of farmers showed positive impacts on the labor cost. This paper proposes targeted policy implications for labor cost control of the grain production in China.

WSS は労働社会保護研究所（RILSP）が2年ごとに実施する全国代表調査である。WSS は、基本給、追加給、特別給、賞与、およびボーナスに関する詳細情報を提供する。WSS 2013、2015、2017の各年の企業レベルと個人レベルのデータを使用して、モンゴルの人件費と賃金構造を研究している。主な発見は次のとおりである。マクロ経済状態の変化に応じて、実質月額人件費は変動する。実質月額人件費は2013年から2015年に3.7％減少し、2015年から2017年に16.6％増加した。しかし実質時給は2013年から2017年までの期間に増加した。景気低迷の間、企業は雇用、就業日、労働時間を削減することで人件費を削減した。しかし2017年に経済が回復したとき、人件費は増加した。人件費と労働生産性の間には弱い関係があり、ここ数年で弱くなってきている。単位労働費用は2015年に増加し、その後2017年に減少した。WSS の3つの波動データを使用して実際の賃金モデルを推定した。分析によると、実際の賃金は従業員の特性と雇用主の特性に密接に関連している。この例では、都市の工業部門の公営企業で働く高等教育を受けた男性従業員は、より高い実質賃金を獲得する傾向がある。2015年、従業員の特性と賃金プレミアムの両方が低下したことは、実際の賃金の下落において同等の役割を果たした。ただし2017年には、賃金プレミアムの増加により実質賃金が増加した。, Wage Structure Survey (WSS) is a nationally representative survey, conducted by the Research Institute of Labour and Social Protection (RILSP) every two years. WSS provides detailed information about basic wages, additional pay, extra pay, awards, and bonuses. We use enterprise and individual level data from the 2013, 2015 and 2017 WSS surveys to study labor costs and wage structure in Mongolia, revealing the following major findings. Real monthly labor cost varies as the macroeconomic state changes. In 2013-2015, real monthly labor cost fell by 3.7% before increasing by 16.6% in 2015-2017. Interestingly, real hourly wages increased during the same period, from 2013 to 2017. During the economic downturn, enterprises slashed labor costs by cutting jobs, workdays and work hours. However, since the economic recovery in 2017, labor costs have increased. There is a weak relationship between labor cost and labor productivity, one which has weakened further in the last few years. The unit labor cost increased in 2015 and then decreased in 2017. We estimate a real wage model with data from the three waves of WSS. According to the analysis, real wages are closely related to employee characteristics and employer characteristics. For example, a male employee with higher education, who works for an urban publicly owned entity in the industry sector, tends to earn a higher real wage. In 2015, a decrease in both employees’ characteristics and wage premiums played an equal role in the fall of real wages. However, in 2017, an increase in wage premiums mostly increased real wages.

The aim of this paper is to assess whether internal devaluation is a sufficient measure to improve industrial exports competitiveness. Focusing on the cases of Greece and Portugal, two small open economies, which have recently experienced major corrective policies in the context of Memoranda of Understanding, we aim at explaining the differences observed regarding the growth of industrial exports in the two countries during the period 2000 to date. Our findings point to a number of cost items other than the unit labor cost that have increased the prices of specific categories of goods exports. Over and above that, however, the higher growth of Portuguese manufacturing exports relative to those of Greece may be explained by a variety of structural weaknesses of the Greek economy leading to its inability to retain international market shares and imposing constraints on the domestic industrial base.

This article assesses the labor issues encountered by coconut producers. It identifies the factors influencing the labor cost that burdened the coconut producers. The study was conducted in the province of Lanao del Norte in the Philippines from October to November 2016. A total of 400 coconut producers were surveyed using the closed-ended questionnaires. The data were analyzed using Garrett’s ranking method and multiple linear regression was applied by the aid of SPSS version 23. The study reveals that high cost of labor is the prime issue encountered by coconut producers in the province. The inadequacy of labors was considered as an important issue since it was ranked as the second rank in labor issues by the coconut producers. It further reveals that the number of the laborers, size of the land, and the number of coconut tree have a strong influence on the cost of labors.

El objetivo fue aplicar la metodología PHVA en la línea de cocido para incrementar la productividad de una empresa de conservas de pescado. Se utilizó un diseño preexperimental con pre prueba y post prueba, la población estuvo conformada por todos los procesos de la línea de cocido de la empresa y la muestra fue igual a la población porque se realizó al total de procesos de la línea de cocido. Se aplicaron instrumentos como la técnica de muestreo de trabajo, diagrama de Ishikawa y la técnica de las 5W-H. La aplicación de la metodología PHVA se enfocó al mejoramiento de las operaciones. En el área de eviscerado se implementó un método de trabajo con la reducción de tiempos ociosos y una penalidad por baja productividad. Para el área de molino se determinaron los tiempos estándares y se aplicó balance de líneas; se redujo el tiempo de enfriamiento de la materia prima a una hora, y se aumentó 42 personas en el área de eviscerado. Para el área de sellado se implementó un programa de mantenimiento para la máquina selladora que aumentó en 11,4 % su confiabilidad. Los principales resultados fueron un aumento en la eficiencia de materia prima de 4 %, la productividad de mano de obra en 54,71 kg/hh, la productividad del costo de mano de obra en 16,943 kg/soles y para la productividad de máquina un 36,18 kg/h-máq. Finalmente, se concluye que la metodología PHVA puede conllevar a un aumento de la productividad.

Children’s toys have always been the primary step on the manufacturing ladder for several developing economies like Malaysia and other ASEAN member states (AMS). Apart from an ideal product to chase low cost labor, children’s toys were easy to produce with relative low-quality requirements. However, following the ‘Year of the Recall’ in 2007 which saw the greatest number of recalled products of children’s toys from markets due to higher permissible amount of lead, Malaysia and several AMS no longer taken the safety of children’s toys product lightly. Despite Malaysia has amended its regulations which requires toys available on the Malaysian markets to be tested for the presence of maximum acceptable levels of lead from toy materials and toy parts, Malaysia and several AMS still has no laws on the regulation on the amount of lead in paint. Even worse, some of AMS still has no national legislations and regulations for safety standard of children’s toys product. This qualitative research utilizes the secondary data gained from scientific database analysis and library research including documents and precedents on children toy safety regulations and analyzed this data by legal interpretation. The finding shows that AMS requires proper national and regional legislations and regulations particularly for import, export, manufacturing, adoption and sale of children toys and paints to be ratified and implemented so as to avert the availability of lead-based paints and children toys with high lead content in the market.

Poly house Cultivation is being developed to achieve good crops with less labor cost. Poly house is made up of polyethylene sheet having rectangular shape to grow the crops in a controlled environment even in unfavorable conditions. By using automated control system, crucial parameters like temperature, humidity and water level necessary for the growth of plants can be maintained and controlled automatically. The thickness of the sheet can be varied according to the requirement that depends on the crop type to be grown. This model has developed with various nodes which are deployed inside poly house and are controlled by IOT technology.

Construction scheduling is based on data on the duration of works, which are directly related to the values of labor costs. This ensures obtaining of the most accurate results of scheduling implemented both at the stage of construction design and in the process of its operational management. In the Russian Federation and in other leading foreign countries, there have been developed databases for standardized labor costs in the field of construction. However, many developing countries, for example, the Republic of Iraq, are not provided with their own standards for labor costs, and therefore, they are forced to use either the standards of other countries or determine the duration of work with the help of expert estimates, which leads to a significant error in the construction planning schedule. To create databases on labor standards, various methods are used that are either based on timing measurements, or on physiological methods for measuring anthropological parameters associated with the energy costs of workers. Since the use of these approaches requires significant costs and time, a technique is proposed as an acceptable alternative. This technique is based on the collection of statistical data included in the executive documentation for construction, expert data that determine the feasibility of regulatory conditions for the performance of work, and regression processing of the final results based on the use of modeling capabilities of artificial neural networks.

This paper aims to find low-cost solutions for the automatic inspection and packaging of an integral part of vehicles, called the suspension mat. This automation substitutes the manual labor and is integrated onto the assembly line of suspension mats which is, aside from the inspection and packaging, fully automated. Through careful analysis of the possible solutions for the delivery and inspection of the part, being a robotized operation and the cheaper automatic systems, automatic systems are used for the inspection and an industrial robot for the delivery of the suspension mat. Through this developed concept, manual labor is eliminated, thus eliminating the labor cost as well as increasing the reliability, productivity and efficiency of the inspection and delivery of the component.

The labor cost has been one of the main reasons for industry to move some of the production to so called low-cost countries. Research has shown that this issue is more complex than just calculate labor cost as main driver. Organization culture, research and development and technical competence is also important drivers for a successful automation strategy. Another important factor when it comes to automation strategies is what production parameters to consider choosing the right automation. Traditionally five parameters have been considered i.e. Volume, batch sizes, variants, investment cost and labor cost. With new and cheaper solutions for automation these two views on automation and lowcost production need to be considered and changed. This paper will describe three demonstrators using low-cost automation solutions to automate simple tasks in final assembly systems. The stations' investment cost is all below 50,000 euro. The first demonstrators have been set up and tested in a lab environment. The results show a high precision, easiness in programming and high quality. The aim is to test this further in real industrial environment to stress the system and to put it into a tougher environment.

Based on the non-parametric DEA-Malmquist method, this paper estimates the total factor productivities of the 33 industrial sectors in China for 2002–2014. The proposed industrial restructuring mea...

The crisis of high labor cost leads companies to evaluate the number of employees in the head office. This study aims to determine the workload and needs of employees in the Directorate of Operations PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII Head Office. The method used in this research is the analysis of the workload with the calculation of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) and work sampling using purposive sampling techniques. The ideal number of employees at the Directorate of Operations is 40 employees consisting of 21 employees of the Plant Department and 19 employees of the Engineering and Processing Department. Based on teh observation, employee working time in Directorate of Operations shows that the average of employee working time is 87,8 4percent fairly productive because it meets the standard that is above 85 percent.Keywords: workload analysis, job description, work sampling.ABSTRAKKrisis biaya tenaga kerja yang tinggi membuat perusahaan perlu mengevaluasi jumlah karyawan yang ada di kantor pusat. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui beban kerja dan kebutuhan karyawan pada Direktorat Operasional PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah analisis beban kerja dengan perhitungan Full Time Equivalent (FTE) dan work sampling dengan penarikan sampel yang menggunakan teknik purposive sampling. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa jumlah karyawan ideal pada Direktorat Operasional sebanyak 40 karyawan yang terdiri dari 21 karyawan Bagian Tanaman dan 19 karyawan Bagian Teknik dan Pengolahan. Berdasarkan pengamatan penggunaan waktu kerja karyawan pada Direktorat Operasional menunjukkan bahwa rataan persentase waktu produktif karyawan sebesar 87,84 persen. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan waktu kerja karyawan sudah optimal karena sudah memenuhi standar yaitu di atas 85 persen.Kata kunci: analisis beban kerja, uraian pekerjaan, work sampling.

This study examines the relationship between private equity investment and local employment growth. Using a sample of over 3,000 US counties, we estimate the effect of private equity investment volume and demographic determinants of employment growth (labor supply, labor quality, labor cost, unionization, agglomeration, industry concentration, and regional geography) on employment changes from 2011 to 2014. Controlling for these demographic factors, private equity investment shows a positive correlation with employment changes. TOPIC:Private equity Key Findings • The study finds a positive association between private equity investment and employment growth. Results indicate that for each $1 million in additional private equity investment, a little more than 1.3 new jobs are created. • Results imply that private equity investment could create positive externalities. Statistical tests using county-wide employment data suggest that company specific private equity investment job-creation effects spill over from the company receiving financing to the local economy.