Current Labor Market Conditions Research Articles

Job Selection and Wages over the Business Cycle

We consider a model with on-the-job search where current wages depend only on current aggregate labor market conditions and idiosyncratic match-specific productivities. We show theoretically that the model replicates the findings in Bils (1985) and Beaudry and DiNardo (1991) on the history dependence in wages. We develop a method to measure match qualities in the data and show empirically that various variables summarizing past aggregate labor market conditions have explanatory power for current wages only because they are correlated with match qualities. They lose any predictive power once match qualities are accounted for. (JEL E3, E24, J3)

Alternatives to Migration in the United States

Despite public opinion favoring reduced immigration, U.S. immigration policy since the 1980s has led to increased inflows of both legal and unauthorized immigrant workers, and migrants accounted for 12% of the U.S. population and 16% of its workforce in 2010. Given this disjuncture, this article explores practical alternatives to high levels of immigration in managing the U.S. workforce. The U.S. economy could reduce foreign-born employment by increasing employment among native workers, by increasing investment in technology and other enhancements to productivity, or by reducing production in immigrant-intensive industries. The article explores the feasibility of these alternatives in relation to current demographic and labor market conditions, possible policy tools, and the likely economic costs and benefits. The analysis reveals that the greatest economic benefits may be gained from enhancements to productivity, which would allow for reduced immigration without loss of output, whereas the reduction of U.S.-based production would likely generate net economic costs.

The effects of implicit contracts on wages: Evidence from the Japanese labor market

This paper tests whether wages in Japan’s labor market are determined by current or past labor market conditions. The empirical results are consistent with a model suggesting that labor market mobility may be limited and costly in Japan for men.

Escuela media y abandono escolar en Argentina: aproximaciones a un debate pendiente

Este texto tiene como objetivo exponer panorámicamente un recuento del surgimiento histórico de la educación media en Argentina, para avanzar luego en la evolución de la expansión matricular hasta la actualidad, contemplando los rasgos fundamentales de la misma. A partir de allí, se expondrán factores incidentes en la problemática del abandono escolar, prestando énfasis a las características de la modalidad técnica. Se retomarán puntos centrales de un debate escasamente explorado que es aquel que aborda la intersección específica entre abandono escolar y los estudiantes de modalidad técnica. Se subraya que las condiciones del mercado laboral actual, como la amplitud de la precarización, el avance del sector servicios y la estrechez en materia de industrialización tornan aún más acuciante el contorno de discusiones sobre esta problemática. Este panorama marcha en paralelo a cambios de envergadura en el sistema educativo nacional, enmarcados en sucesivas modificaciones a las normativas jurídicas que lo orientan.

A Comparative Assessment of Robertson County, Tennessee

Merchant Community Analysis utilized a peer comparative approach in conducting an analysis of current population, labor market, industrial, and economic conditions of Robertson County, Tennessee. The following are the key items examined across the set of designated peer communities, resulting in the stated outcomes from this assessment:Population Growth: Rapid population growth of is likely a great driving force in the local economy, but it brings added challenges, such as increased infrastructure needs.Population Demographics: The growing abundance of children in the community will likely induce the need for continued added funding for the public schools. Attracting seniors to retire in Robertson County, however, may benefit the local economy in the long run.Educational Attainment: The Roberson County adult population lags behind the nation and falls amid peer counties in educational attainment statistics.Labor Force: The county's unemployed workforce has swelled to more than 3,500 in 2009. Increasing educational attainment may give workers the ability to find better jobs.Job Growth: During the economic expansion prior to the Great Recession, Robertson County had robust job growth. Some of the growth occurred in industries that were likely related to the national housing bubble. However, the county also saw strong growth in other industries, to include manufacturing. Industry: Robertson County’s job base is pillared by the goods-producing sectors of agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. There may, however, exist local business opportunities in the sectors of art, entertainment, and recreation.Average Wages: The county's wage growth has fallen behind all peer counties, as well as the nation as a whole. A more highly educated workforce may be essential in the creation of local jobs that pay higher wages. Income: Commuters who hold higher paying jobs in Nashville likely contribute to higher average incomes in Robertson County.Poverty: Increasing education attainment may be a key element in helping residents who currently live in poverty to find jobs that pay sufficient wages.

Sign reversal in LIVE treatment effect estimates: The effect of vocational training on unemployment duration

We use administrative records in Israel to identify the treatment effect of vocational training for the unemployed on the duration of unemployment. We randomize training using data on the availability of courses in and around the time of becoming unemployed. This assumes that the timing of entry into unemployment is random, and course availability around the time of entry is independent of current labor market conditions. According to naïve estimators, which ignore self-selectivity, training reduces unemployment durations. The same applies to linear (IV) estimators, which control for self-selectivity. However, the opposite is found when non-linear IV estimators are used, i.e. training prolongs unemployment durations. Sign reversal depends on how the first stage is specified. A non-nested test indicates that the nonlinear estimate of the treatment effect is preferable to its linear counterpart, in which case training prolongs unemployment spells.

Can it start small, but end big? expanding social assistance in South Africa

Generating heated politics in South Africa is a proposal to introduce a universal basic income grant, known as “BIG”. The “gaps” in the existing system of social assistance grants have caught the attention of activists and politicians across the political spectrum. Most concur on the need to expand the system, but the issue of how its “gaps” should be closed is a matter of great political divergence. To cast light on the significance of these debates, I show how the system's “gaps” are more complicated than measurements of poverty and inequality may suggest. Following the social and economic relations that develop around social grants, my analysis foregrounds a tension in the existing assistance system. Social grants provide a critical source of income for recipients and their kin, assisting them to confront the challenging realities of current labor market conditions. At the same time, social grants act as conduits for historical forces to articulate with local conditions and reshape relationships between citizens, the state, and the market. This tension points to the ambiguity of the BIG proposal and of its potential to engender a larger transformation.

The Consequences of Rigid Wages in Search Models

The standard theory of equilibrium unemployment, the Mortensen—Pissarides search and matching model, cannot explain the magnitude of the business cycle fluctuations in two of its central elements, unemployment and vacancies. Modifying the model to make the present value of wages unresponsive to current labor market conditions amplifies fluctuations in unemployment and vacancies by an order of magnitude, significantly improving the performance of the model. Despite this, the welfare consequences of such rigid wages is negligible. (JEL: E24, E32, J30, J41, J63, J64)

The Earnings of Immigrant Men in Australia: Assimilation, Cohort Effects, and Macroeconomic Conditions

This paper analyzes the earnings of immigrant men in Australia using data from Income Distribution Surveys for 1982, 1986 and 1990. The paper expands on the standard approach used in the literature to evaluate immigrant earnings adjustment by considering the impact of current labour market conditions and conditions at labour market entry on current earnings. Immigrants from non‐English speaking backgrounds have significantly lower earnings on arrival in Australia compared with native‐born males, and this gap is not narrowed as years in Australia increase. However, poorer macroeconomic conditions at entry are found to have a significantly smaller negative effect on the earnings of immigrants from non‐English speaking backgrounds than native‐born males.

Using Advance Layoff Notices as a Labor Market Indicator

We use advance layoff notices filed under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act as an indicator of current and imminent labor market conditions. We have constructed a database of establishment-level notices starting in 1990 by scraping state government websites, contacting state officials, and retrieving historical data. We find evidence that these notices, aggregated to the national level, lead other prominent labor market indicators, such as initial unemployment insurance claims, the change in the unemployment rate, and changes in private employment. The lead relationship seems strongest at one month with economically meaningful magnitudes. Most recently, WARN data suggest a slight increase in labor market slack.

Developing the developers: Some ethical dilemmas in changing times

Universities in Australia, like those in many Western countries, currently are being pushed to find for themselves an increasing share of their own budgets and to consider themselves as service providers to students, their ‘customers’. These students, having paid fees, may well expect to get what they have paid for and, in current labour market conditions, that may amount to a degree rather than an education. That is, universities are now under‐funded and, frequently, far from being seen as educational institutions, are seen as businesses whose role is to provide adequate service at optimum price. By and large, educational development staff do not teach students so they do not contribute directly to the income of the enterprise. The position of such staff and the units in which they are located is thus increasingly coming under threat as ‘economies’ are sought by academic ‘managers’. One poignantly pointed issue, then, is the extent to which educational developers might appropriately change the style and substance of their activities to assist in the evolution of universities to embrace and perhaps to thrive in the new environment. Would this amount to collusion or to co‐operation? Developers have, in the past, often attempted to develop themselves by embracing the model of reflective practice and implementing it both while carrying out their work (a kind of action learning) and at conferences and in journals and books of various kinds. However developers, and their clients (actual and potential), are under increasing pressure and for many survival, not thriving, may be the main issue. The issue for developers may well be the identity of their clients ‐ the university; its management; its teaching staff; its students (the university's supposed ‘customers'). In this paper I focus on the ethical dilemmas which may arise when educational developers try to develop themselves to serve various possible clients.

Employment Trends in Geography, Part 1: Enrollment and Degree Patterns*

This paper is the first in a series of three papers dealing with the current and future labor market for geographers. It is based on a report prepared by the Association of American Geographers' (AAG) Employment Forecasting Committee to the National Research Council's (NRC) Rediscovering Geography Committee. This report provides a data-based analysis of the past and future supply of geographers, the current labor market conditions in the field, and the factors likely to influence the future demand for geographers (faculty hiring, geographic education initiatives, trends in private-sector jobs, etc.). Each year some 4,000 individuals receive degrees in geography from America's institutions of higher education. They, or some portion of them, make up the new supply of geographers entering the labor market. In the near future (up to five years), the availability of new geographers is related to the number of geography students now in the educational pipeline. Their current specialties, and the specialties of ...

Inflation and Indexation: An Empirical Approach

Previous studies have examined various aspects of indexation. We can distinguish two major points of interest: wage determination, and the effects of indexation on macroeconomic fluctuations. Some scholars have attempted to determine empirically and theoretically the causes of cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) clauses in wage contracts [3;7; 11]. The focus in this research is often on major union contracts, with wage change a function of both real factors (e.g., the unemployment rate) and monetary factors (e.g., past inflation). Typical results are that past inflation will increase the adoption of indexation, while industry-specific shocks may cause resistance to indexation. In addition, Kaufman and Woglom [7] have shown that current labor market conditions have a significant impact on long-term contracts. Research has also been concerned with the effect of wage indexation on the macroeconomy [1;2;5;6]. How can wage indexation schemes be designed so as to alleviate the substantial income redistribution due to inflation and the use of contracts in nominal

The Private Demand for Education in Relation to Labour Market Conditions in Less-Developed Countries

Excerpt] In this paper, we construct a model of the demand for education in relation to labor market conditions in less developed countries to try to understand why a high demand for education might be expected to persist in countries characterized by a substantial surplus of educated labor. It might be argued that the continued demand for education merely reflects the failure of citizens to adjust their behavior to current labor market conditions. This position implies that the demand for education will fall, perhaps drastically, as expectations come into line with reality. However, in contrast to this position, we demonstrate in this paper that under several alternative labor market scenarios the sustained private demand for education is quite rational and can be explained by the net private benefits which the educated individual receives in the labor market.