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Purpose: This study aims to analyse the institutional changes in the Spanish labour market in the light of the measures introduced to support workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Applying the theoretical framework the authors' hypothesis is that the labour policy response to the crisis provoked by COVID-19 in Spain has ranged from strategy of preservation of the social democratic coalition to the anti-bourgeois bloc coalition with a greater presence of social pacts and the support of the social partners. Design/methodology/approach: Combining the institutional theory of liberalisation trajectories, the four ideal-typical reform strategies and the social pacts literature, the authors analyse the change in the labour market policy orientation during the COVID-19 economic crisis in Spain. Findings: In comparison to the Great Recession labour policy response, short-time work schemes and new benefits have characterised the 2020 labour policy strategy. Then, the labour policy response has oscillated between, on the one hand, a strategy of preservation of the social democratic coalition, which is characterised by measures to protect workers on the margins of the labour market without affecting the discretionary power of employers. On the other hand, a strategy of the anti-bourgeois bloc coalition, reflected in the employment safeguard clause that attempts to limit both external numerical flexibility and the increase in unemployment. Finally, the authors have analysed whether the labour policies after the COVID-19 crisis constitute a new round of social pacts in Spain and how this took place. They conclude that the main measures approved in the area of employment protection have been supported by social pacts and the social partners (trade unions and employers), as reflected in the signing of the Social Agreement in Defence of Employment (ASDE). Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is a significant contribution as it is the first article to point out that the labour policy represents a change in the trajectory of liberalisation, limiting the discretionary power of employers and re-regulating the labour market. The main measure of (re)regulation has been to safeguard employment and to avoid objective or unfair dismissals, which is the traditional form of adjustment. In other words, internal numerical flexibility has been promoted over external flexibility, thus significantly modifying the orientation of labour policy. Finally, the authors have found that social pacts have allowed for greater institutional coherence between legal changes and the behaviour of employers and workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim is to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the careers of different groups of young individuals, based on transition probabilities. Design/methodology/approach: The authors analyse the evolution of individual shares and flows between different types of employment (self-employment, temporary, and permanent), unemployment, education, and other types of inactivity of individuals aged 20–29 in Italy. Findings: The authors find that the pandemic worsened an already concerning situation of higher inactivity rates, compared to other EU countries. In quarters III and IV of 2020, mainly females and non-Italian citizens were less in (permanent and temporary) employment and more in the NLFET (neither in the labour force nor in education or training) state compared to the same quarters one year before. The authors also find evidence of a temporary but not persistent return to education among 20–24 years old individuals, particularly females. These changes are suggestive of a prolongation of the time needed to achieve temporary and permanent employment, mostly for females and non-Italian citizens. Originality/value: The contribution lies in the provision of a rigorous estimation and analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the careers of young individuals in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Entrepreneurship is promoted as a solution to high rates of youth unemployment around the world and especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This paper investigates the potential for youth entrepreneurship to alleviate unemployment, focusing on Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. Design/methodology/approach: The authors examine who entrepreneurs are (in comparison to the unemployed), using multinomial logit models. The authors compare entrepreneurs' and wage workers' working conditions and earnings. They exploit panel data to assess earnings and occupational dynamics. They specifically use the Labor Market Panel Surveys of 2012 (Egypt), 2016 (Jordan), and 2014 (Tunisia), along with previous waves. Findings: The authors find that entrepreneurs are the opposite of the unemployed in MENA. The unemployed are disproportionately young, educated and women. Entrepreneurs are older, less educated and primarily men. Entrepreneurship does not generally lead to higher earnings and does have fewer benefits. Originality/value: Promoting youth entrepreneurship is not only unlikely to be successful in reducing youth unemployment in MENA, but also, if successful, may even be harmful to youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The implications of trade on developing economies have generated substantial debates with most studies focussed on "openness in the policy". Hence, the purpose of this study is to focus on "openness in practice". Design/methodology/approach: This study uses two models and employed the vector error correction model and structural vector autoregression, first, to examine the sectoral effects; second, to investigate the efficacy of neoclassical and new trade theories; and third, to analyse the effect of trade openness shock on Nigerian labour market performance. Findings: The results of the first model showed that trade openness has an adverse effect on employment and wages in both the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Likewise, the study concludes that the new trade theory explains trade's behaviour on employment and wages in Nigeria. The second model showed that the effect of error shock from trade openness affected wages more than employment. Research limitations/implications: The study ignores the distributional effects due to unavailability of data. Practical implications: The study suggested, amongst others, the need for policies mix on the labour market via a coherent set of initiatives in other to increase the competitiveness of Nigeria in the international market. Originality/value: Most studies focussed on openness in policy through the channels identified in the literature. However, this study investigates these channels in "openness in practice" and investigates trade theories' efficacy on manufacturing and agricultural sectors in Nigeria, which has been neglected in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Di Tella et al. (2001) show that temporary fluctuations in life satisfaction (LS) are correlated with macroeconomic circumstances such as gross domestic product, unemployment and inflation. In this paper, we bring attention to labour market measures from search and matching models (Pissarides 2000). Design/methodology/approach: Our analysis follows the two-stage estimation strategy used in Di Tella et al. (2001) to explore sectoral unemployment levels, labour market tightness and matching efficiency as LS determinants. In the first stage, we use a large sample of individual data collected from a continuous web survey during the 2007–2014 period in the Netherlands to obtain regression-adjusted measures of LS by quarter and economic sector. In the second-stage, we regress LS measures against the unemployment level, labour market tightness and matching efficiency. Findings: Our results are threefold. First, the negative link between unemployment and an employee's LS is confirmed at the sectoral level. Second, labour market tightness, measured as the number of vacancies per job-seeker rather than the number of vacancies per unemployed, is shown to be relevant to the LS of workers. Third, labour market matching efficiency affects the LS of workers differently when they are less satisfied with their job and in temporary employment. Originality/value: No evidence of this relationship has been documented before. Our results give support to government interventions aimed at activating demand for labour, improving the matching of job-seekers to vacant jobs and reducing information frictions by supporting match-making technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on labour market discrimination by introducing an analytical process model that offers a template for the systematic analysis of discrimination within the process of labour market integration. Its usage and contribution to the field is exemplified by applying the proposed model to the case of ageism in labour market integration. Design/methodology/approach: Five phases and four actors are distinguished that, added together, compose the proposed analytical process model. In the following, the model is used as an analytical framework for a mapping review, aimed at identifying and critically evaluating the vast and extensive literature on ageism in the process of labour market integration. Findings: The paper concludes that ageism occurs in all five phases of the integration process, pinpointing potential areas for policy interventions. Furthermore, the authors conclude that the existing literature on ageism in labour market integration is fragmented, with some elements and/or actors within the process so far having received little attention. Originality/value: The analytical process model developed in this paper provides the scientific community with a tool to systematise the literature, detect underlying mechanisms and uncover existing research gaps, not only for the case of ageism presented here, but for a vast variety of other –isms. In addition, policy makers, trade unions and employers can use the model to better target and tailor anti-discrimination measures in labour market integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of local labour market conditions and pupil educational attainment as primary determinants of the post-compulsory schooling decision. Design/methodology/approach: Through the specification of a nested logit model, the restrictive independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption inherent in the multinomial logit (MNL) model is relaxed across multiple unordered outcomes. Findings: The analysis shows that the factors influencing schooling decisions differ for males and females. For females, on average, the key drivers of the schooling decision are expected wage returns based on youth educational attainment, attitudes to school and parental aspirations, rather than local labour market conditions. For males, higher local unemployment rates encourage greater investment in education. Originality/value: The contribution of this paper to the existing literature is threefold. First, a nested logit model is proposed as an alternative to a MNL. The former can formally incorporate the structured and sequential decision-making process that youths may engage with in relation to the post-compulsory schooling decision, as well as relaxing the restrictive IIA assumption inherent in the MNL across multiple unordered outcomes, an issue the authors discuss in more detail in the Methodology section below. Second, the analysis is based on extremely rich socio-economic data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, matched to local labour market data and administrative data from the National Pupil Database and Pupil Level Annual School Census, which provide a broad set of unusually high-quality measures of prior attainment. The authors argue that such high-quality data and an appropriate model specification allows identification of the determinants of the post-compulsory decision in a more detailed manner than many previous analyses. Third, the data have the scale necessary to consider whether the determinants of post-compulsory schooling decisions vary by gender, a particularly important issue given the differential education participation rates of males and females (e.g. in this cohort, females are about 10 percentage points more likely to go on to higher education in the UK than males), and the gendered choices of occupation (see, e.g. Bertrand, 2011). The work will, therefore, provide recent empirical evidence from England on gender differences in the determinants of education choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative estimates on the impact of active labour market policy (ALMP) on youth unemployment in Europe based on a macroeconomic panel data set of youth unemployment, ALMP and education policy variables and further country-specific characteristics on labour market institutions and the broader demographic and macroeconomic environment for all EU-Member States. Design/methodology/approach: The authors follow the design of an aggregate impact analysis, which aims to explain the impact of policy on macroeconomic variables like youth employment and unemployment (see Bellmann and Jackman, 1996). This follows the assumption that programmes, which are effective in terms of improving individual employment opportunities, are going to make a difference on the equilibrium of youth unemployment. Findings: The findings show that both wage subsidies and job creation are reducing aggregate youth unemployment, which is in contrast to some of the surveys of microeconomic studies indicating that job creation schemes are not effective. This finding points towards the importance to assist young people making valuable work experience, which is a benefit from job creation, even if this experience is made outside regular employment and/or the commercial sector. Research limitations/implications: In terms of the variables to model public policy intervention in the youth labour market, only few indicators exist, which are consistently available for all EU-Member States, despite much more interest and research aiming to provide an exhaustive picture of the youth labour market in Europe. The only consistently available measures are spending on ALMP as a percentage of gross domestic product (in the different programmes) and participation stocks and entries by type of intervention. Practical implications: The different effects found for the 15–19 year olds, who seem to benefit from wage subsidies, compared to the effect of job creations benefitting the 20–24 year olds, might relate to the different barriers for both groups to find employment. Job creation programmes seem to offer this group an alternative mechanism to gain valuable work experience outside the commercial sector, which could help form a narrative of positive labour market experience. In this way, job creation should be looked more positively at when further developing ALMP provision, especially for young people relatively more distant to engagement in regular employment. Social implications: Improving the situation of many millions of young Europeans failing to find gainful employment, and more generally suffering from deprivation and social exclusion, has been identified as a clear priority for policy both at the national level of EU-Member States and for EU-wide initiatives. With this study, the authors attempt to contribute to the debate about the effectiveness of policies which combat youth unemployment by estimating the quantitative relationship of ALMP and other institutional features and youth unemployment. Originality/value: To research the relationship between youth unemployment and ALMP, the authors created a macroeconomic database with repeated observations for all EU-Member States for a time series (1998–2012). The authors include variables on country demographics and the state of the economy as well as variables describing the labour market regimes from Eurostat, i.e. the flexibility of the labour market (part-time work and fixed-term employment as a percentage of total employment) and the wage setting system (level and coordination of bargaining and government intervention in wage bargaining). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether family support, measured through the labor status of parents and the presence of both parents in the household during adolescence, may be an important determinant of unemployment in Spain. Design/methodology/approach: To address this issue, we follow the Quantity-Quality model of Becker–Lewis (Becker and Lewis, 1973), using data from the Survey of Living Conditions (2011). Findings: First, the results show that individuals living with both parents at home during their teenage years are less likely to be unemployed in the future. Second, the authors find evidence of the intergenerational transmission of unemployment outcomes, and that the unemployment status of the mother is strongly transferred to the child. Additionally, the authors extend this work to an analysis of other labor characteristics, finding that family support is an important determinant of self-employment and temporary employment. The findings are robust to controls for observable and unobservable characteristics by region, and to the use of different subsamples. Originality/value: This study can be considered as first evidence of the effect of family support during adolescence on the Spanish labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the job quality in Benin between 2007 and 2011. To do this, the study constructed a multidimensional measure of job quality and identified the determinants of the quality of the job. The measure adopted by the authors includes four dimensions: wages; extra-wage benefits and regularity of employment; conditions and career opportunities; and, finally, social security. Two methods, including the construction of measure of job quality and the estimation of determinants of the job quality index, were used to test the robustness of the effects. The results show that the quality of job improved slightly between 2007 and 2011 and that factors such as experience, the type of contract, the level of education, the formal character of the company and the work hours explain the job quality of workers in Benin.Design/methodology/approach The measure adopted by the authors includes four dimensions: wages; extra-wage benefits and regularity of employment; conditions and career opportunities; and, finally, social security. Two methods, including the construction of measure of job quality and the estimation of determinants of the job quality index, were used to test the robustness of the effects.Findings The results show that the quality of job improved slightly between 2007 and 2011 and that factors such as experience, the type of contract, the level of education, the formal character of the company and the work hours explain the job quality of workers in Benin.Originality/value The contribution of this study lies in its analytical approach and in the fact that it reinforces the knowledge that exists on this theme, which is still little studied in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between skills in the Estonian, Russian and English language, and labour market outcomes in Estonia, a linguistically divided country.Design/methodology/approach The authors use the Estonian Labour Force Surveys 1992–2012. The authors rely on multivariate linear regression models to document the relationship between language skills and labour market outcomes.Findings Estonian language knowledge (for ethnic Russians) are important determinants of unemployment. Wage, in contrary, is closely related to English skills. Ethnic Russian men do not earn any premium from speaking Estonian, while women, fluent in Estonian earn approximately 10 per cent more. For ethnic Estonians, Russian fluency is associated with a similar income gain.Research limitations/implications Due to the observational nature of the data, the effects reported in this study are not causal effects. As a second limitation, the self-reported language skills data may be imprecise and hence the effects the authors report may be too small.Practical implications The results stress the role of workplace segregation, both along gender and ethnic lines, in determining the individual labour market experience.Originality/value The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the effects of language skills in a rapidly developing labour market in a linguistically divided economy. The authors analyse several languages with different legal status and document long-term trends in the effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the matching process before and after the Great Recession in the Netherlands. The Dutch case is interesting because it is characterised by increasing matching efficiency.Design/methodology/approach This paper uses data from 2001 to 2014 to study the Dutch labour market matching process accounting for the three labour market states and their heterogeneities.Findings The elasticity of hires with respect to the short-term employed was significant, positive and countercyclical, while elasticities relating to new entrants were procyclical. The matching function (MF) displays constant returns to scale (CRTS) when using an alternative labour supply (LS) measure that includes the short-term employed as jobseekers. The findings are at odds with the idea of mismatch and a shortage of skills. Search frictions for employers were lower and vacancies were filled faster. This can be related to the fact that in a loose labour market context with increasing short-term employment, employers increase their hiring of employed workers which generates negative externalities on unemployed.Originality/value The implications concern the specification of the MF and the CRTS assumption when using unemployment as a LS measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate if public provision of employment support services to youth leads to reduced informality and increased wages in transition economies.Design/methodology/approach The author uses the school-to-work transition data sets of the International Labor Organization for seven transition economies of Southeast Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The author focuses on two econometric issues: the selectivity into informal employment and the endogeneity of the public employment support service provision with respect to informal employment and wages. The authors achieves identification by employing internal regressors which are uncorrelated with the product of heteroskedastic errors, a-la Lewbel (2012), as the author could not prove the external validity of the commonly used external instruments in similar contexts.Findings Results suggest that the public provision of employment support services matters for relegating informal employment, but not for wages, in general. Placement in education or training programs is most powerful in reducing informal employment among the four different employment support services, while only advice for job search works positively for wages probably through enabling better match.Social implications Increasing budget allocations, varying the array of public employment support measures, enhanced targeting, and advancement of the profiling system may significantly contribute to strengthening the public employment support service effect on youth employment in transition economies.Originality/value The paper brings a couple of novelties to the current literature. First, it is among the early papers dealing with the issue of informality, public employment support service and labor market prospects of youth in general in a rigorous manner. Second, it fills an important gap for transition economies which were less researched due to the long-lasting transition process as well due to data scarcity. Third, it utilizes the recently collected School-to-Work Transition Surveys (SWTS). Finally, and likely most importantly, it thoroughly addresses the issues of selectivity bias and endogeneity of PESS by utilizing a recent approach of Lewbel (2012) whereby internally generated variables are used as instruments. Hence, the paper accounts for the endogeneity stemming from unobservables in a novel manner, contrary to the common approaches in the literature based either on propensity score matching addressing selectivity on observables only, or relying on commonly used instruments in the labor market literature – mainly regional employment variables – whose external validity is easily disputed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose To transcend the long-standing debate regarding whether workers are driven into the informal economy by either their involuntary “exclusion” or voluntary “exit” from the formal economy, the purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven “upper tier” and an exclusion-driven “lower-tier” of informal workers, and to explore its policy implications.Design/methodology/approach To do so, data are reported from a 2015 survey of the informal economy conducted in South-East Europe involving 6,019 face-to-face interviews in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR Macedonia.Findings Identifying a dual informal labour market with three exit-driven informal workers for every exclusion-driven informal worker, a multinomial logit regression analysis reveals that, compared to the exclusion-driven “lower tier”, the exit-driven “upper tier” is significantly more likely to be populated by the formally employed, retired and those not struggling financially. Participation is not affected by the perceived severity of penalties and likely risks of detection, but relative to those in the exclusion-driven “lower tier”, there is a significant correlation between those doing so for exit rationales and their lack of both horizontal trust and vertical trust in formal institutions.Practical implications The outcome is a call to transcend the conventional deterrence approach of increasing the penalties and risks of detection. Instead, to tackle those driven by exit rationales, tackling both the lack of horizontal trust that other citizens are operating in a compliant manner and the lack of vertical trust in formal institutions is advocated. To tackle exclusion-driven informal workers, meanwhile, a focus upon the macro-level economic and social conditions which lead to their participation is required.Originality/value This is the first paper to empirically evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market and to evaluate its policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of the effect of labour market status on the current probability to be invited to a hiring interview. The authors compare the effect of periods of unemployment, part-time job and short-term contracts (STCs).Design/methodology/approach Correspondence tests were conducted for accountants and sales assistants. The authors estimate the discrimination components from the response rate of each candidate by the asymptotic least squares method.Findings The authors find that men with a part-time profile suffer discrimination in both professions. Other differences of treatment are specific: for accountants, the authors find that the probability of success decreases with the time spent in unemployment, while for sales assistants the probability of success is smaller with a history of STCs.Originality/value This study compares the effect of different dimensions of career history (part-time versus full-time, permanent versus short-term, unemployment versus employment) for experienced job candidates. It also proposes an alternative way to exploit the design of a correspondence experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore whether single and married female job candidates’ un/employment histories differentially affect their chances of obtaining interviews through China’s internet job boards, and to consider whether firms’ discrimination against, and/or preference for, candidates who are un/employed vary with the duration of unemployment spells.Design/methodology/approach Resumes of fictitious applicants are carefully crafted in terms of realistic work histories and educational backgrounds. Candidates’ experiences of unemployment and the revelation of their marital status are controlled. Over 7,000 applications are submitted to real job postings. Callbacks are carefully tracked and recorded. Linear probability models are employed to assess the roles of particular characteristics.Findings The marital status of female candidates affects how recruiters screen their applications. While current spells of unemployment, whether short or long term, significantly reduce married women’s chances of obtaining job interviews in the Chinese context, they strongly increase the likelihood that single women will be invited for interviews. Chinese firms appear to “forgive” long-term gaps in women’s employment histories as long as those gaps are followed by subsequent employment.Originality/value This paper is the first to explore how marital status affects the ways that firms, when hiring, interpret spells of unemployment in candidates’ work histories. It is also the first to explore the effects of both marital status and unemployment spells in hiring in the context of China’s dynamic internet job board labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose It is increasingly important to study labour market outcomes for people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). Where most studies focus solely on young people, the purpose of this paper is to include both younger and older NEETs to find out if there is any long-term scarring effect, and if the effect is different between these two groups.Design/methodology/approach This study uses a twin-based estimation method for the first time to measure the long-term effect of economic inactivity on income. The analysis is based on biological twins, in order to control for individuals’ unobservable heterogeneity. It is assumed that twins are similar to each other and the only unobservable heterogeneity is at the family level. Register-based data from Statistics Sweden is used.Findings The result indicates a significant negative income effect for those who have been in NEET, and is larger for those who have been in NEET for several consecutive periods of time. Individuals who were in NEET during 2001-2003 had on average 62 per cent lower income compared with their twin in 2011. The corresponding number for individuals who were in NEET for just one period was 33 per cent. Hence, time in NEET reduces income. The results show that the long-term scarring effect is not affected by age.Originality/value This study utilises for the first time a twin-based estimation method to measure the long-term effect of inactivity. Most studies focus solely on young people, but the authors also include an older group of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the links between labor market conditions and academic performance by disentangling the effects of unemployment. The contribution of this study is, therefore, threefold: first, it provides new evidence on the link between labor market conditions and educational decisions; second, it quantifies separately the two separate effects of unemployment on academic performance at age 15; and third, it analyses heterogeneous effects of the “family” and “local labor market” – proxied through the unemployment rate of the school community – effects.Design/methodology/approach The analysis of the impact of unemployment on academic performance is performed through hierarchical linear regressions.Findings The results show that academic performance at age 15 is affected by labor market conditions, and, at the same time, previous performance determines future educational decisions. Thus, these results highlight the sensitivity of students’ educational decisions and academic performance to shifts in the labor market.Practical implications This suggests that strategies aimed at reducing early school dropout rates should not be restricted solely to the education system. In other words, school failure is not only dependent on schools and, hence, on education policies.Originality/value This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing new evidence on the relationship between short-term labor market dynamics and academic performance. More specifically, this paper represents a significant step forward in comparison to the previous literature as it has provided responses to three key questions faced by countries with high unemployment and high early school dropout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the opportunities in the labour market for young employees with intermediate-level education by studying which young employees are most likely to be retained and under what conditions managers favour retention.Design/methodology/approach Retention decisions are examined by combining a vignette experiment and a survey study. Hypothetical profiles of 252 young employees were rated on their retention desirability by 21 managers, each working in a different organisation. Information on the managers’ characteristics and their organisations were collected in a survey.Findings Managers are generally not inclined to suggest retention. Their decisions are highly dependent on their own characteristics and organisational factors, even when young employees perform well and display desirable work-related behaviour.Research limitations/implications While the small scale and explorative nature of this study limit its generalisability, this paper highlights the importance of combining information on employees, the organisation and managers; when studying (early) careers and employment decisions.Practical implications This study suggests that job retention is only in part within an individual’s control, and the future efforts to combat youth unemployment need to account for organisational and managerial characteristics.Originality/value The focus on the employer’s perspective is new to research on early careers, making it a starting point for further lines of exploration. Further, this study provides a comprehensive insight into factors that influence managers’ retention decisions by combining three sets of factors in a single research design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify factors behind cyclical fluctuations and differences in adjustments to shocks in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIPS) and a reference country – Germany. The authors try to answer the question whether the GIPS countries could have fared differently in the Great Recession if they reacted to shocks affecting them like a resilient German economy would have.Design/methodology/approach The authors use a DSGE model of real open economy with search and matching on the labour market and endogenous job destruction, estimated separately for each country. The authors calculate impulse response functions, historical decompositions and perform counterfactual simulations of the response of the German model to the sequence of shocks identified for each of GIPS.Findings The authors find that all GIPS countries were more vulnerable to productivity and foreign demand shocks than Germany. They would have experienced lower macroeconomic volatility if they reacted to their shocks like Germany. Employment (unemployment) rates in GIPS would have been less volatile and higher (lower) during the Great Recession, especially in Spain and Greece. Real wage volatility would have been higher, especially in Spain and Portugal.Originality/value The trade-off between unemployment and wage adjustments vis-à-vis Germany was the largest in Spain, which also would have experienced lower variability of job separations and hirings. The evolution of the labour market in Greece and Portugal was driven rather by its higher responsiveness to GDP fluctuations than in Germany, whereas Italy emerges as the least responsive labour market within GIPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to adopt the principles of labour economics, behavioural economics and social influence to identify constraints and enablers that influence people’s choices in relation to the labour market decisions.Design/methodology/approach A sequential empirical methodology has been adopted, where data from the British Household Panel Survey (2009) has been collected to explain various statuses of labour market activity, with a focus on workless-ness, across the categories of unemployment, being a student, disability, retirement and being a carer – differentiating for gender and age. The paper develops and substantiates the hypothesis theoretically and gives some indications using a multi-disciplinary approach.Findings The authors found that labour market opportunities, choices and achievements are affected by the interrelations and interactions of an individual’s demographic and psychological characteristics (such as age, gender, heuristics, perceptions, beliefs, attitude’s goals and ambitions) along with external factors (such as geographical, socio- cultural and economic conditions).Originality/value This study makes a unique contribution to labour economics as the authors abandon the traditional welfare approach and use a more general framework of capabilities and refined functioning to interpret how different types of constraints – ranging from socio-economic conditions and environmental background to specific features of individual processes of choices and decision making – affect preferences and functioning’s. The study also identifies how “under-employment” complements the use of BE/social influence in explaining labour market inactivity, and highlights how the findings of this study have important implications for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of self-employment exit in Poland and its determinants.Design/methodology/approach The author examines the outflow from self-employment into different labour market status: employment, unemployment, inactivity using multinomial logistic regression. The analysis is conducted separately for men and women using Polish Labour Force Surveys (LFS) (2001-2007).Findings Results indicate that personal and family characteristics have different impact on self-employment exit for men and women. However, unfavourable macroeconomic conditions have similar impact regardless gender. The author’s results show that higher local unemployment rate reduces the likelihood of self-employment exit into employment, while conducting business in a sector affected by economic downturn increase outflow from self-employment for both men and women.Research limitations/implications Certain limitations of the study arise from the design of the Polish LFS. It is a rotating panel with relatively few time periods, so it can only allow the author to analyse the outcomes in short-term perspectives.Practical implications Those results provide some background for potential policy interventions. In the context of persistent, high unemployment rates in Poland, there is need for some policy incentives which reinforce self-employment – an important alternative form of the labour market participation.Originality/value Majority of previous studies focusses on self-employment creation, as policy incentives do. However, very little is known about the reasons for leaving self-employment. The author fills this gap analysing the outflow and transition from self-employment to different labour market status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the concept of employability. It reviews and systematizes the two main current perspectives about employability, the individual and the critical. The individual perspective is dominant and currently determines the term; its basic premise is that an individual is responsible for his/her socio-professional career. By contrast, the critical perspective deconstructs the former concept and analyzes its role in maintaining the status quo.Design/methodology/approach Through a review of literature about employability this paper analyses the different conceptions and the consequences of the assumption of each perspective nowadays.Findings This paper provides an analytical framework of all the key elements involved in the notion of employability based upon the bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). This model offers a vision that encompasses the different explanatory elements of the employability concept.Originality/value The ultimate goal of this paper is to rekindle the debate on employability and to do so, it is necessary to explore the origins of the concept, the contexts it affects, who it benefits and, conversely, who it jeopardizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate area-level labour market dynamics from a spatial perspective. This analysis is aimed at better understanding what socio-economic actors are associated with shifts in unemployment rates across a major metropolitan city. Design/methodology/approach – Based on two waves of New Zealand census data, this paper combines a seemingly unrelated regression approach (allowing for relaxation of the assumption that residuals from models of different employment states are unrelated) with a spatial lag model. Findings – The key socio-economic drivers associated with intra-city employment dynamics were vehicle access, dependency rates and educational attainment. Importantly, the identification of spatial autocorrelation with respect to employment status patterns within this major New Zealand city motivates a case for heterogeneous employment policies across the city. Originality/value – This research improves the understanding of changes in labour market status rates within a city region. This is done by inclusion of two important considerations: a spatial perspective to labour market dynamics at an intra-city level; and formally modelling the interdependence across the four potential labour market outcomes (being full-time, part-time, unemployed or out of the labour force). Overall, there was clear empirical support for the need to include spatial considerations when using targeted policy to help lift areas out of unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of unemployment and labour institutions such as employment protection legislation, coverage of unemployment benefits, minimum wages (MW), union power and tax wedge on migration flows. The authors allow for interactions of these institutions with migration entry laws, as both affect equilibrium wages and employment in destination countries, influencing mobility decisions of immigrants. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use data on migration flows for a sample of 15 OECD countries over the period 1980-2006. The relationship between flows and labour institutions is analysed using OLS techniques and including destination and origin-by-year fixed effects. The coefficients of interest are identified through within country variation. The authors test the robustness of the results to different specifications using, among others, dynamic models for panel data. Findings – The authors find strong and negative effects of unemployment, employment protection and migration policy on flows. The negative effect of migration policy on flows is larger in countries with high than in countries with low employment protection. The authors find positive effects for MW, unemployment benefits and union power. The authors show heterogeneous effects depending on the group of countries of origin and destination. Research limitations/implications – While the identification strategy allows us to estimate the effects of interest, the baseline estimates may suffer from endogeneity problems in terms of omitted variable bias and reverse causality. The sensitivity checks provide mixed results and show that baseline estimates are not always robust to different specifications. Further work is needed to better address the problem of endogeneity. Originality/value – The paper adds to the previous literature on the determinants of immigration flows by explicitly considering the labour market environment in destination countries. The results provide insights into potential interaction effects and coordination of reforms in labour markets and immigration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on transitions from the state of unemployment to that of employment and of inactivity in Italy and Spain. Design/methodology/approach – First, the paper investigates the determinants of unemployment outflows in these two Mediterranean labour markets. Then, the paper examines discrepancies and similarities between specific outflow determinants, especially the interactions between gender and marital status, by comparing results obtained across countries. Findings – The findings of the paper suggest that gender and marital status influence the probability of unemployment outflows in both countries, although not in the same way, especially with reference to marital status. Discrepancies also emerge in relation to the role of geographical area of residence. Originality/value – International comparisons of unemployment outflows are rather new in the literature, and as far as we know none have been performed using European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data. Further, although studies quite often examine the issue of gender-related labour mobility using the European Community Household Panel survey that took place in the 1990s (Arulampalam et al., 2007; Garcia Pérez and Rebollo Sanz, 2005; Theodossiou and Zangelidis, 2009), one of the main contributions of this paper is that it provides a systematic examination of the issue, considering the influence of gender and marital status differences on patterns of unemployment outflows to employment and inactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the social status of migrants in a culturally liberal and historically cosmopolitan port city in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach – A novel data set from the Izmir Labor Market Household Survey is used. Social status is measured by occupational status, wages, and education. In addition, parents’ education, as well as, duration of unemployment for migrants is analyzed. Occupational status and education analyzes are based on ordered probit models. The probability that an individual with given characteristics will have an uneducated parent is estimated with a probit model. Weibull duration model is employed for the unemployment duration. Findings – Migrants in Izmir are likely to have occupations that claim a lower status. Migrants have higher wages so migrants are taking jobs of lower status but higher pay. The probability of exiting unemployment for migrants is higher, that is the duration of unemployment for migrants is shorter. Male have higher education levels and receive higher wages. Parents’ education for migrants is lower in general. Female migrants have lower education levels than natives, male or female, and do not receive higher wages than female natives in the labor market. The paper concludes that the social status of migrant women is definitely lower than natives, male or female, and male migrants. Evidence on the social status of migrant men also points to a disadvantage as even though the male migrant is more educated on average, he is likely to hold an occupation of lower status. Originality/value – This paper employs a novel data set to investigate the social status of migrants vs natives. In addition, it undertakes a multi-dimensional econometric analyses of social status. Unemployment has not been included in econometric analysis of social status before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze the welfare use of Turkish immigrants and natives in Germany. The authors ask whether the immigrant-native gap in welfare use can be explained by observable characteristics, whether the mechanisms behind welfare dependence differ for Turkish immigrants and natives, and, finally, they compare the situation before and after the 2005 reform of the German welfare system. Design/methodology/approach – Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, the authors estimate linear probability models with random effects to investigate the correlates of transfer receipt for Turkish immigrants and natives. Findings – Turkish immigrants have a higher propensity to use welfare benefits than natives. After controlling for general individual and household level characteristics, the difference in welfare receipt is statistically significant only for the group of second generation immigrants. The correlation of observable characteristics with welfare dependence differs significantly for the native and immigrant sample. The share of benefit recipients increased after the policy reform in 2005 for both immigrants and natives. Practical implications – First, as human capital and particularly labor market status are important determinants of welfare use, training programs designed for the special needs of immigrants might support their labor market integration. Second, measures to ameliorate the integration of older people into the labor market might be particularly useful because the need for welfare benefits arises particularly at the 50-60 age range. Originality/value – This is the first study to investigate welfare use of Turkish immigrants after the German 2005 labor market policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of unemployment on various types of crime in Greece. Design/methodology/approach – A battery of econometric tests, including Granger causality tests, a variance decomposition analysis, and an impulse response analysis are used to explore the nexus between unemployment and 14 different types of crime. Findings – Out of the 14 different types of criminal activity, only in the case of three – vehicle thefts, robberies and contraband & smuggling – was a nexus with unemployment established. Practical implications – Given that such criminal activity is primarily motivated and driven by economic gain, a policy implication is that crime thwarting policies need to be complemented by corresponding labour market interventions, especially in periods of recession, when unemployment emerges as a major problem for disadvantaged social groups. Originality/value – The issue between labour market conditions and crime has not been addressed before in the case of Greece, a country that has experienced a generally growing crime rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the long-term effects of policy measures for displaced workers. The focus is on the individuals affected by the closure of the Uddevalla Shipyard in western Sweden in 1985 and the cutbacks at the LKAB mines in northern Sweden in 1983. Design/methodology/approach – These workers not only experienced job loss, but were also target groups for extraordinary labour market policies. Using register data from Statistics Sweden (labour market status, earnings, education etc.), the authors follow those affected until 1999, comparing their experiences with the development of a large sample of other workers who lost their jobs because of plant closures in 1987-1988 but who did not receive extraordinary measures. Findings – Estimations of the net effect of the extraordinary measures find that they did have positive long-term effects for the displaced shipyard workers and miners. They have higher employment, not higher unemployment, and higher earnings than the comparison group. Originality/value – The authors are not aware of any previous research on the effects of labour market policy addressing displacement in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to theoretically and empirically investigate the relative effects of wage subsidies and further vocational training on employment prospects. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a theoretical approach that discusses the effects of two major active labor market programs; empirical test using a large administrative data set from Germany and statistical matching techniques. Findings – Previously subsidized individuals and trained individuals who found a job immediately afterwards have the same employment rates. Practical implications – Firms value training on a subsidized job as much as formal training programs. Originality/value – The paper presents a model that draws attention to the role of hiring decisions of firms and to the formation of human capital by training programs and by training on subsidized jobs; estimation of relative average treatment effects on the differentially treated, i.e. participants of two active labor market programs; and comparisons not only of all unemployed but also of unemployed persons taking-up or keeping a job after program end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of financial crises on the youth unemployment rate (YUR). The authors consider different types of financial crises (systemic banking crises, non-systemic banking crises, currency crises and debt crises) and different groups of countries, according to their income level. Design/methodology/approach – After a review of the existing (theoretical and empirical) literature on the determinants of the YUR in general and at the occurrence of economic crises, the authors present empirical estimations on the impact of past financial crises on young workers. The relationship between financial crises and YUR is investigated by employing fixed effects panel estimation on a large panel of countries (about 70) around the world for the period 1980-2005. The "persistence" over time of the impact is also investigated. Finally the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel is estimated, confirming the significance of the results. Findings – According to the authors' empirical estimates, two key results are relevant: financial crises have an impact on the YUR that goes beyond the impact resulting from GDP changes; and the effect on the YUR is greater than the effect on overall unemployment. The inclusion of many control variables – including in particular GDP growth – does not change the sign and significance of the key explanatory variable. The results suggest that financial crises affect the YUR for five years after the onset of the crises; however, the most adverse effects are found in the second and third year after the financial crisis. Research limitations/implications – Although fully aware of the peculiarities of the last crisis, the authors believe that the econometric results facilitate a better understanding of the impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis on the youth labour market. Practical implications – The main policy implication is that effective active labour market policies and better school-to-work transition institutions are particularly needed to reduce the risk of persistence and structural (long-term) unemployment, since young people have been worst affected by the last crisis. Originality/value – There are many studies on the characteristics and causes of youth unemployment; considerable research has also been carried out into the labour market impact of financial crises. This paper brings the two strands of literature together, by econometrically investigating the impact of financial crises on YUR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to assess the evolution of labour-market performance in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over the last decade, considering the robustness of the claims made in an important OECD follow-up study. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper sets up an empirical framework calibrated on an important OECD follow-up study, and suggests some ways in which the impact of unobserved heterogeneity and outliers on policy estimates can be treated in a cross-section framework. The framework applies to the data for 30 OECD countries. Findings -- The paper finds that changes in labour-market performance are inversely linked to lagged unemployment. Changes in the share of construction workers are also significant even in the presence of various kinds of policy change indicators. As far as the latter are concerned, the results highlight the role of unemployment benefits and, especially, active labour-market policies. Research limitations/implications -- The kind of policy change indicators used do not allow the adoption of panel data techniques. Practical implications -- An important policy role seems to emerge for unemployment benefit reforms and, even more so, active labour-market policies. The evidence also supports the contention that the construction sector is important for labour-market performance. Originality/value -- The paper brings to the fore novel evidence about cross-country labour-market performance at a time when this issue is of high interest for citizens and policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to attempt to look at the link between labor market risks and social insurance demands by taking occupational unemployment rates, and specificity of skills into account. Design/methodology/approach - Occupational unemployment rate is treated as an estimate of labor market risk in addition to human capital investment. Then, the variations in Germany and the USA - with diverse labor markets and a considerable difference in terms of social insurance support - are examined. Findings - The results suggest that occupational unemployment rate is explanatory for the demands for social insurance along with income. Practical implications - Conclusions reached in the paper aim to contribute to the understanding of the political support for social insurance and hence provide tools for the design of such insurance mechanisms. Originality/value - Contrary to the widespread association between the type of human capital and social insurance preferences in the literature, the paper argues that the cross-country variations can be explained by occupational unemployment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper aims to introduce a new large-scale panel study ("PASS") for research on the labour market, the welfare State and poverty that combines a sample of 6,000 recipient households with an equally large sample of the general population. Design/methodology/approach -- The authors show how research goals and the specific population of the survey are accounted for in a tailored survey design. Findings -- The authors point the reader to new research potential created by the new study. ,The new potential is mainly derived from the sampling design (large recipient sample combined with a population sample), the direct measurement of poverty by a deprivation index, the detailed measurement of the migratory background, additional information (like attitudes, search intensity) for models of recipiency dynamics, and the linkage of the survey data with administrative data. Originality/value -- The data set described fills a major gap in the data-infrastructure available for labour-market research. From a methodological point of view it presents an innovative sampling design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The paper aims to present an analysis of the indirect and direct effects of active labour market policy measures at the regional level for Western Germany. Design/methodology/approach -- Most evaluation studies of active labour market policy focus on the microeconometric treatment effect using individual data and do not account for possible indirect effects like deadweight and substitution effects. The present study uses a dynamic specification of the augmented matching function at the regional level. A dynamic panel data model is estimated using monthly and regional variation of different labour market programmes as explanatory variables. Furthermore, spatial interactions are taken into account by adding a spatially correlated error term. Findings -- Almost no significant negative effects are found of the stock of participants in programmes of labour market policy on the number of outflows from unemployment into regular jobs. Thus, contrary to findings at the individual level, no lock-in effect is found. The number of programme participants does not reduce the number of outflows from unemployment. On the other hand when looking not at the stocks but on the outflows from programmes, no positive effects on outflows from unemployment at the regional level are found. Research limitations/implications -- Because of data limitations only a period up to six months after completing a programme is used. Originality/value -- The authors distinguish between the effects of the stock of programme participants and of the outflows from programmes. Furthermore, the authors account for spatially correlated error terms by using a GM estimator proposed by Muff in 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Unemployment is a systemic element of economic development which need not and "normally" does not give rise to full employment of labour regardless of the flexibility in labour markets. This paper aims to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach - The paper presents the common arguments and policy proposals to unemployment put forward by mainstream and Keynesian economics and it continues by exploring the dynamics of economic development and its effects on employment. Findings - The normal utilization of the capital stock is not necessarily associated with any specific level of employment. As a result, even high levels of unemployment may be consistent with the normal (full) employment of capital, and the degree of flexibility in the labour market cannot affect the above result in any significant way. Practical implications - The dynamics of capital accumulation continually tend to reproduce a stream of displaced workers. Moreover, the liberalization of the labour market in the effort to increase labour flexibility have contributed to the polarization of income distribution and increased the poverty rate. Originality/value - The acknowledgment that the normal functioning of capitalism is consistent with a rising unemployment rate may provide policy makers with a solid analytical ground upon which more realistic and viable employment policies can be proposed in the effort on the one hand to reduce unemployment and on the other hand to alleviate its adverse effects on the unemployed and on social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Several studies have provided empirical evidence that female labor force participation rate exhibits a U-shape during the process of economic development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the existence of U-shape relationship in the case of Pakistan and if it does exist, what factors determine this U-shape relationship? Design/methodology/approach - For the estimation purpose data according to provinces and regions are pooled for three years. The model is estimated using a simple fixed effect test. Findings - The results affirm the existence of U-shaped relationship. Estimation of the pooled data attributed this U-shape relationship with female education attainment, sectoral employment share, unemployment rate, wages and marital status. Results confirm that high rate of economic development is encouraging the female participation in the labor force by increasing the work opportunities for females. The females are taking full advantage of these increased opportunities by increasing their level of education attainment. Research limitations/implications - In testing the U-shape hypothesis, household expenditure on fuel consumption representing level of economic development in the country is used as the data on GDP are not available at the provincial level. Practical implications - This paper recommends that skill-based education programmes should be promoted so that females could be absorbed in the formal labor market. It also recommends measures to decrease unemployment rates and improve labor market conditions. Originality/value - The paper is first of its kind as it applied pooled data technique for the estimation of U-shape relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of job search and human capital of the unemployed in the Russian Federation for obtaining a job the following year. Design/methodology/approach - Cross-sectional data on human capital and job-search strategies from different years of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey are used in different probit specifications to present and analyse empirical results. Findings - Searching through friends and directly are the most common search methods, implying a large trust in networks. Moreover, people tend to do the right thing when trusting their networks; in 1994, searching via friends and directly were the only methods with a positive impact. People used fewer methods in 1994 and the impact of job searching is also higher in the latter two samples. This indicates a society gradually adapting to unemployment. As regards human capital, it is worth noticing that the results in 2004 are in accordance with several predictions of human capital theory, whereas the impact of medium education and work experience in the samples based on earlier years is weaker. This suggests that more people have had time to upgrade their skills, to obtain relevant work experience and/or to obtain a post transition secondary education in 2003. Originality/value - This paper identifies the importance of both different job-search strategies and human capital when searching for a job in the Russian Federation. The result presented may be of interest to both policy-makers and scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The paper seeks to describe the multitude of pathways to early exit from the labour force and to estimate how individuals allocate into different pathways out of the labour force conditional on early retirement. Design/methodology/approach - A multinomial logit approach is used to analyse the characteristics of individuals who retire through each pathway compared to those remaining in the labour force. Findings - Eight pathways from work to an early retirement programme are identified. Overall, availability and/or generosity of retirement programmes are important for early retirement through the employment and unemployment insurance benefit dominated pathways, while personal characteristics seem to be at least as important for early retirement through other pathways. Research limitations/implications - An interesting approach in future work would be to gain access to health data, making it possible to build a competing risks model where some pathways are used due to health shocks and others are chosen based on economic optimisation comparing compensation rates with disutility from continued work. Originality/value - While the dominant approach in many retirement studies is on destinations, the analytical focus in this paper is instead on how people span the period from leaving the job until entry into an early retirement programme. The period the authors study contains a policy experiment, where a programme for early retirement conditional on age and unemployment is opened and closed down again later in the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper aims to build on existing studies on the relationship between individual wages, age and experience, and provide new evidence on the determinants of wages in Italy. Design/methodology/approach -- Wage-age profiles, which include cohort variables to capture generational differences in wages and are characterised by a changing-over-time structure, are estimated by fixed and random effects panel regressions. The analysis exploits a longitudinal dataset of administrative data on wages for the period 1985-1999. Findings -- This paper shows that wage to age profiles for different cohorts of workers are not stable over time: although younger generations of Italian workers are benefiting from higher starting wages than older generations, they face the prospect of lower growth of future earnings. It also confirms the existence of a significant supply effect: the bigger the cohort relative to the active population, the smaller the cohort's gain in terms of wage levels. Finally, it captures the dependence of individual wages on aggregate labour market conditions: individual wages are shown to be negatively related to the unemployment rate and positively related to the union wage index. Research limitations/implications -- Although the paper does not propose a novel theoretical approach to individual wage analysis, it demonstrates the benefits of a more integrated empirical analysis of individual wages. Practical implications -- The empirical findings suggest that it would be possible and useful to integrate the changing age profiles of individual wages with the estimation and projections of Italian aggregate industry and service sector average wages. Originality/value -- The paper provides new evidence on the determinants of the dynamics of individual wages through the estimation of time-varying wage to age profiles of workers in the Italian industry and service sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The paper aims to show that active labour market policies in Scotland over a nine-year period have failed to meet key policy objectives. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses the UK national online manpower information system (NOMIS) to conduct a detailed statistical analysis of the spatial differentials in exits from and entry to unemployment across 72 Parliamentary constituencies. The analysis is conducted by reference to the concepts of convergence, NAIRU and hysterisis. Findings - The findings suggest a presence of hysterisis and absence of spatial convergence such that some areas in Scotland have become worse off in terms of the risk of unemployment and despite active labour market intervention. Research limitations/implications - Future research needs to be undertaken at the micro-spatial level to confirm these findings and to focus on the weaknesses in the design of active labour market policies. Practical implications- Active labour market policies in Scotland do not work in terms of reducing the risk of unemployment. Policy needs to focus on creating demand for labour rather than an almost exclusive reliance on "promoting" the supply-side. Originality/value - The key contribution of this paper is that it is the first to provide a detailed analysis of the Government's own data on unemployment distribution - it should be of value to both academicians and policy makers in terms of both analytical approach and policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The aims of this paper are to measure the impacts of subsidy, work experience and training programmes on New Zealand male registered unemployed, and to examine the sensitivity of these estimates to the amount of time that participants are followed after an intervention. Design/methodology/approach - The impact of an intervention on those who participate in an active labour market programme is the key question addressed in this paper. A New Zealand panel data set is used, which includes both intervention and individual characteristics of the unemployed. Both a potential outcomes and single nearest-neighbour difference-in-differences matching approach are used to estimate the impact of participation. Findings - The key findings are that work experience programmes are the most effective in the short-term. Training programmes are the least effective. Programmes are more effective for the long-term unemployed than for short-term unemployed. The results are sensitive to the point of time examined in the post-intervention period, with short-term benefits disappearing completely three years after the intervention. Originality/value - This paper examines the relative effect of active labour market programmes in New Zealand using a consistent evaluation framework. The sensitivity of the results to different time periods, and matching estimator specifications are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To explain the sources of jobless growth in Poland, the country undergoing economic system transition and integration with the European Union (EU). Design/methodology/approach - The research used the Harrod-Domar model together with an interpretation proposed by Barro and Sala-i-Martin to determine the growth threshold level of jobless growth in Poland. The technical, econometric calculation does not dominate the paper, which is destined for both academic and non-academic readers studying the phenomenon of jobless growth. Findings - The paper provides a review of literature and theories of jobless growth. The calculations show that Poland has a high threshold of jobless growth. The Polish GDP needs to grow at least 4 per cent to add new jobs. Research limitations/implications - To evaluate the overall long run impact of labor productivity on the job market one needs to include the growth of non-manufacturing jobs in the service sectors which accommodate the needs of more affluent worker/consumers. This long-term analysis is outside the scope of the paper. Practical implications - The authors calculated an important variable for the Polish economy, i.e. the threshold growth rate of jobless growth, which indicates a minimum rate of growth, needed to create a net demand for labor. This research is likely to be quoted by the economists studying sources of unemployment in Poland and as well as in any high growth economies. Originality/value - It is the only research known to the authors attempting to explain high level of unemployment in transition economies using recognized economic theories. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the phenomenon of jobless growth in market economies in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Greece has the highest youth unemployment rate in the European Union. Even though it is clear that persistent unemployment requires bold measures in engaging young educated Greeks in the labour market, there is no coherent policy targeting that population group, especially university students. This research paper aims to explore the idea of restructuring the internal labour market in Greek universities by expanding services and offering part-time job positions to their students. Design/methodology/approach - In assessing the feasibility of such a project a survey was conducted involving 237 undergraduate students majoring in business management and 22 administrative executives at the University of Macedonia, Greece. Findings - The survey's main findings indicate that there is a tendency to match job openings with skills supplied by students in a work-school programme focused on campus part-time jobs. Research limitations/implications - A large-scale national survey involving students from various academic disciplines and executives from different universities would result in a more informed discussion on institutions that promote youth employment. Originality/value - This study has shown that a work-study programme promoting work opportunities on campus is plausible in Greece and might have great value for key stakeholders - students and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the active labour market policies or job search policies in the UK known as the New Deal, a major part of the Labour Government's package of welfare-to-work policies. Topics covered include estimates of their overall impact on employment; their limited effectiveness with disadvantaged job-seekers, including increasing numbers of inactive, but not formally unemployed, people; and debates about these policies in relation to skill needs and areas of job decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses how the high proportion of temporary employment affects the firm's technical efficiency. Uses the stochastic frontier approach to measure the technical efficiency of the Spanish manufacturing firms during the period 1990-2001. A negative relation between technical efficiency and the proportion of temporary jobs has been obtained Also, shows that permanent employment makes an important contribution to output while temporary does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses changes in the labor market of Poland from 1990 to 2000. Trends in the development of public and private sectors; Changes in the structure and level of employment; Impact of the structure on unemployment; Privatization; Rates of labor turnover.

Analyzes factors determining the outflows from unemployment to employment across regions in Poland in the 1990s, employing the concept of the augmented matching function, and explores the influence of the economic growth and the employment structure of the regional labor markets in Poland. Conclusion that the values are closely and positively related to the number of unemployed and the number of vacancies and to the economic growth rate; Other conclusions.