Labor Market Characteristics Research Articles

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF EMPLOYMENT REGULATION

The article considers the problems of employment in the theoretical and methodological context. Under current conditions, the interpretation of the labor market's essence, methods, reasons, and characteristics are worked out and given. The central state levers of employment regulation are noted. The peculiarities of the theoretical and methodological approach to employment regulation are specified, where the leading place belongs to legal, organizational and managerial, economic, socially-oriented, analytical, negotiable, innovative, and popularizing. The role of the state in the process of regulating employment, which performs a distributive function (providing tax benefits to enterprises, taxation of the wage fund), macroeconomic, which consists in increasing labor supply and limiting the adverse defects of the economic system (inflation, unemployment, economic downturn), stimulating function, which allows to revive innovation and investment activity and affects the whole market situation (employment promotion, public investment, subsidies, grants, subventions, and subsidies). Special attention in the article is paid to synthesizing existing works of scientists and researchers on the generalization of the critical theoretical and methodological approaches to the essential understanding of employment. Further scientific interpretation was given to legal, organizational, and managerial methods, economic, socially-oriented, analytical, favorable, innovative, and polarization. A certain consonance of theoretical and methodological principles of employment with the peculiarities of regional development of socio-economic processes is proved. Therefore, when developing a strategy to increase employment in the region, one should consider the existing proportions between workers and employers, staff turnover, labor supply, placement of labor resources, etc. Measures are proposed that are designed not only to regulate employment processes in the theoretical sense but also to increase economic activity, solving the problem of accommodation and rational use, taking into account the specifics of a particularly territorial and regional grouping. Methods of regulation of direct and indirect action are offered. The conclusions of the conducted theoretical research are concretized. Keywords: employment, labor market, macroeconomic factors, state regulation, full employment.

The role of labor market structure and shocks for monetary policy in Kazakhstan

In this paper , we study the role of labor market structure and shocks for monetary policy in Kazakhstan employing a New Keynesian model with labor market rigidities. We estimate the model using Bayesian techniques to identify labor market shocks that are important for monetary policy-making. The estimation results suggest that shocks to the bargaining power of workers explain most of the output and inflation fluctuations. Thus, it should be closely monitored by the central bank. In addition, we examine to what extent different labor market characteristics affect the transmission of monetary policy. The results show that a more flexible wage-setting process improves the transmission mechanism. A monetary policy shock translates faster to inflation. Furthermore, we find that the relevance of other features of the labor market for the transmission of monetary policy shocks is limited.

Educational mismatch in recent university graduates. The role of labour mobility

ABSTRACT This article analyses patterns of persistence in both vertical and horizontal educational mismatch in the early career of university graduates in Spain, with particular emphasis on the mediating role of job mobility. We explore whether educational mismatch is a stepping stone towards better-matched positions or whether graduates get trapped in mismatched jobs. Our results show that job mobility partially corrects educational mismatch (supporting the stepping stone hypothesis), but there is still a strong persistence in educational mismatches four years after graduation (the trap hypothesis). Vertical mismatch is, overall, less persistent than horizontal mismatch, in part because some horizontally mismatched graduates lack incentives to make corrective movements across employers because of compensating job features that keep them in their first jobs. Job rotation and poor accumulation of employment experience challenge the correcting role of job mobility in educational mismatch risk. These results reflect relevant features of the Spanish labour market: segmentation, intensive job turnover and high youth unemployment.

Associations between migration and commuting to work in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo

AbstractThis paper investigates associations between migration and inter‐municipal commuting to work in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo with two main objectives: to determine whether a connection exists between long‐term relocation and daily travel and to determine whether this relationship is dependent on the distance of the migratory process. The empirical strategy is based on the estimation of univariate and bivariate probit models applied to microdata of the Brazilian Demographic Census of 2010. Different socio‐economic and demographic characteristics, such as sex, age, civil status, household arrangements and labour market features, were associated with both inter‐municipal commuting and migration. Moreover, associations between inter‐municipal commuting and migration depended on the distance of migration. It was observed that inter‐municipal commuting and intrametropolitan migration are complementary, whereas commuting and longer distance migration are substitutes.

The politics of the British model of capitalism’s flatlining productivity and anaemic growth: Lessons for the growth models perspective

This article assesses the usefulness of the growth models perspective for understanding contemporary British capitalism in the context of its ongoing ‘productivity puzzle’ and stagnating economic growth. The analysis of British capitalism supports our argument that growth models perspective analyses currently have limited capacity to understand the developmental trajectory of growth models, the instabilities and dysfunctionalities of these models, and how growth comes to be distributed differently across models. Through analysis of capital investment patterns and labour market characteristics, it reveals the importance of the ‘politics of productivity’, embedded in state institutions, which shapes the nature and distribution of economic growth. The article outlines a new framework for growth models analysis that ‘brings the supply-side back in’ for a more holistic approach to the political economy of capitalist growth (and non-growth). It argues this is critical for understanding patterns of political economic development in the British model of capitalism and beyond.

Occupational Health Physiotherapy (OHP) Practice: A Comparison between Japan and Australia.

This study aimed to adapt a pre-existing cross-country comparison (CCC) model to Occupational Health Physiotherapy (OHP) practice as a basis for locating and examining contextual factors that may influence OHP practice in Japan and Australia. A secondary analysis was conducted of existing publicly-available data on OHP and related influential factors, following the five components of the CCC model: work-related legislation; labor market characteristics; culture; physiotherapy practice norms; and organization of OHP practice. Legislation in both countries promotes safe work and rehabilitation of work injured/ill workers. 2019 unemployment was lower in Japan with higher employment protection than Australia. Both countries have an ageing workforce and rising retirement age. Cultural differences relate to higher long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance in Japan. Australia has higher individualism and physiotherapists are autonomous practitioners with direct access, which differs from Japan. Both countries have a national OHP subgroup, to date only Australia has OHP professional practice standards. This study is the first to compare OHP practice in Japan and Australia. Contextual similarities and differences observed may underpin OHP practitioner role and its enhancement in work-related musculoskeletal disorder prevention and management strategies, the return-to-work process, and development of this physiotherapy discipline nationally. Adapting the CCC model to OHP practice enabled a structured exploration of resources and data, from which to extract and compare contextual factors that may shape OHP practice in Japan and Australia. This in turn may provide a useful springboard for further discussion about OHP practice internationally.

How universal is WMS? A contextual analysis of the relationship between people management practices

The World Management Survey (WMS) initiative has collected firm-level data in more than 35 countries for the cross-country measurement of management quality. Abundant research shows that management quality is a good and universal predictor for productivity. However, firms’ environments differ from each other substantially. The purpose of our study is to critically examine whether the people management dimension in WMS, as an important dimension of management quality, is equivalently associated with productivity across countries. We do so by investigating the association between people management and labour productivity in varying contexts of cultural values and labour markets in 14 countries. Our results confirm earlier findings that people management significantly relates to labour productivity. More importantly, we do not find any moderating contextual effects of culture or labour market characteristics on the relationship between people management and productivity, suggesting that the best practices of people management that WMS offers seem to be valid across countries with different cultural values and labour market characteristics. Therefore, we offer valuable insights into the debate of convergence versus divergence of management practices across the globe.

High-Performance Work Systems and Firm Performance: A Cross-National Meta-Analysis

The present study seeks to develop the contingency theory in strategic human resource management (HRM) by revealing national contextual factors (i.e., national human capital and labor market flexibility) that moderate the effects of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on firm outcomes. Building on theories and research on human capital resources and labor market institutions, we propose that the level of national human capital as indicated by national education quality would display disparate moderating effects on the relations of HPWS to firm performance and voluntary turnover, depending on the flexibility of labor markets. When labor markets are flexible, national human capital would augment the effects of HPWS on firm outcomes, whereas when labor market flexibility is low, it may partly substitute for the effects of HPWS. A meta-analysis of studies containing 385 effect sizes from 15 different countries lends sufficient support for our hypotheses, highlighting the importance of national education and labor market characteristics as key contingency factors for the functioning of HPWS at the national level and offering meaningful implications as to how organizations can optimize their use of HPWS in a global context.

Does increased migration affect the rural–urban divide in suicide? A register‐based repeated cohort study in Sweden from 1991 to 2015

AbstractSome countries have high suicide rates in rural areas with a potentially stronger impact of rural context on foreign‐born residents. In Sweden, where immigration has been increasing, dispersion policies have directed refugees/migrants to settle in rural areas. We examined whether trends in suicide mortality vary by nativity and rurality. A repeated cohort study was designed using Swedish national register data between 1991 and 2015. Our three‐level analysis found that male suicide rates in rural areas were 1.2 times higher than in urban areas, with the rate decreasing over time in both urban and rural areas. We observed fluctuations in suicide mortality among foreign‐born men residing in small rural communities, with high suicide rates in the 2000s. The proportion of unemployed was linked to the excess rate of suicide in rural municipalities. Dispersion policies moving migrants to rural areas should take into account the regional characteristics both within municipalities (e.g., income distribution) and between municipalities (e.g., labour market characteristics).

Risk, Recessions, and Resilience: Towards Sustainable Local Labor Markets through Employment Portfolio Analysis

This paper explores the role of local labor market dynamics on the survival of new businesses. The characteristics of the local labor market are likely to influence the survival of new businesses, the level of entrepreneurship, and the resilience of the regional economy. We apply portfolio theory to evaluate employment-based and income-based measures of risk-and-return trade-offs in local labor markets on new business survival in the United States. Our results show that volatility in local labor markets has a positive impact on new business survival, especially in Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The results are robust across different timeframes, including during economic downturns, thus highlighting the contribution of new businesses in developing the resilience of the local economy, and further promoting sustainable regional economic development.

Who are the essential and frontline workers?

Identifying essential and frontline workers and understanding their characteristics is useful for policymakers and researchers in targeting social insurance and safety net policies in response to the COVID-19 crisis and allocating scarce resources like personal protective equipment (PPE) and vaccines. We develop a working definition and provide data on the demographic and labor market composition of these workers. We first apply the official industry guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March 2020 to microdata from the 2018 and 2019 American Community Survey to identify essential workers regardless of actual operation status of their industry. We then use the feasibility of work from home in the worker’s occupation group (Dingel and Neiman 2020) to identify those most likely to be frontline workers who worked in-person early in the COVID-19 crisis in March/April 2020. In a third step, we exclude industries that were shut down or running under limited demand at that time (Vavra 2020). We find that the broader group of essential workers comprises a large share of the labor force and tends to mirror its demographic and labor market characteristics. In contrast, the narrower category of frontline workers is, on average, less educated, has lower wages, and has a higher representation of men, disadvantaged minorities, especially Hispanics, and immigrants. These results hold even when excluding industries that were shut down or operating at a limited level. Results for essential and frontline workers are similar when accounting for changes in the federal guidelines over time by using the December 2020 guidelines which include a few additional groups of workers, including the education sector.

Panel Analysis of Household Consumption Expenditure Structure: Focusing on the Labor Market Characteristics and Earnings Income of Householders

본 논문은 가구주의 노동시장 특성이 가계 소비지출구조에 미치는 영향을 분석하기 위하여 노동패널 자료에 준이상수요체계(AIDS) 모형을 적용하여 2005~17년까지의 비목별 구성비 함수를 추정하고 지출 탄력성을 계산하였다. 추정 결과 노동시장의 직업지위와 고용상황이 가계 소비에 여실히 반영되는 것으로 나타났다. 대체적으로 직업지위가 낮은 단순노무직과 비정규직 가계는 식비, 주거비, 보건의료비, 교통비 등 생활필수품의 비중이 높고, 반면 가구주의 직업지위가 높은 가계는 외식비, 피복비, 교양오락비의 비중이 높았다. 지출 탄력성 계산 결과 필수재 성격의 비목에서는 직업지위가 낮거나 비정규직인 경우 지출 변화에 민감하였다. 선택재인 외식비와 교양오락비는 하위 직종일수록 탄력성이 컸고, 기타 지출과 내구재 및 생필품비는 상위 직종일수록 탄력성이 커서 비목별로 직업 간 민감도에 차이가 있었다. 향후 보건의료, 교양오락, 외식비 등에서 소비 증가 가능성이 높다. 하위직 근로자나 비정규직 등 노동시장 취약계층의 소비복지를 위해서는 의식주 관련 재화의 가격안정과 공공 복지확대뿐 아니라 노동시장에서 안정적 소득창출과 고용안정 등의 처우개선이 필요해 보인다.

Gender and race differences in pathways out of in-work poverty in the US

Research on in-work poverty has focused on the probability of being employed while living in an impoverished household, but no studies have investigated pathways of labor market attachment and economic vulnerability following in-work poverty. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to establish a typology of employment pathways out of in-work poverty and to estimate differences by gender and race. By using the Sequence Analysis Multistate Model procedure, we identify five distinct pathways characterized by varying degrees of labor market attachment, economic vulnerability, and volatility. White men are most likely exit in-work poverty into stable employment outside of poverty, while Black men and women often experience recurrent spells of in-work poverty. Gender and race differences persist even after controlling for labor market and family demographic characteristics. Our results indicate that work-related anti-poverty strategies must be coupled with adequately high wages and employment protection legislation to effectively raise working households out of poverty.

Communication and language skills pay off, but not everybody needs them

Abstract The importance of communication skills is increasing on the labour market and a further strengthening of this trend is expected due to Industry 4.0. This development will have significant consequences for individuals’ employability, requirements on educational outcomes and gender equality. This article employs data from a representative survey of Czech employees (N = 1,500) replenished with information on requirements on their communication skills (Effective communication, Czech language and English language) in order to explore (a) the distribution of communication skills requirements on the labour market, (b) personal and job characteristics related to work positions requiring highly developed communication skills, and (c) wage returns to these skills. The results show that one standard deviation increase in job requirements on communication skills is connected with 5.8% wage premium. However, not everybody needs well-developed communication skills. Only a quarter of employees needs highly developed effective communication, Czech and English languages, while there is also a quarter of employees that needs only a very basic level of communication skills. The results also revealed that females perform more communication-intensive occupations than males do. Cognitive skills and the need to excel represent other significant factors correlated with higher job requirements on communication skills.

Influence of Fiscal Policies and Labor Market Characteristics on Sustainable Social Insurance Budgets—Empirical Evidence from Central and Eastern European Countries

Social protection systems are a key factor for ensuring the long-term sustainability and stability of economies in the European Union, their reform being nowadays present in the political agenda of member states. Aging and the dependence on mandatory levies applied to the employed population on the labor market represent a threat for the sustainability of public social protection systems. In terms of sustainability, our purpose was to highlight the factors influencing social insurance budgets, considering the fiscal policies implemented in six countries of Central and Eastern Europe and their particular labor market characteristics. Therefore, a panel study based on a regression model using the Ordinary Least Squares method (OLS) with cross section random effects was used to determine the correlations between funding sources and labor market specific indicators. The data analyzed led to relevant results that emphasize the dependence of social insurance budgets on positive factors such as the average level of salaries, the share of compulsory social contributions, the unemployment rate, and the human development index, suggesting the continuing need for professional and personal development of the workforce.

Examining the Differential Impact of Recessions and Recovery across Race and Gender for Working- versus Professional-Class Workers

We investigate how wages and occupation sorting vary by race, gender, and class during recessions. We performed repeated Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions of the Black-White wage gap from 1988 to 2020. Black professional-class workers’ wages are more unstable and take a more substantial hit during recessions. Black workers see a lower return to their labor market characteristics during recessions, and this is pronounced for the professional class. Using an occupational crowding methodology, we find that Black women are overrepresented in essential work and roles with high physical proximity to others and receive the lowest wages. White men are crowded out of riskier work but, within these categories, dominate higher-paying roles. Black workers earn less in professional riskier work than in working-class roles, while the reverse is true for White workers. We find that class status does not protect Black workers to the same extent as White workers, especially during recessions.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Lockdown Policies on Poverty and Inequality in Latin America

We estimate the possible effects on poverty and income distribution of the crisis unleashed by Covid-19 on a group of Latin America and Caribbean countries, representing 80% of the total population in the region: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. We use household survey data from pre-crisis national household surveys and, based on prospective scenarios of vulnerability to the shock, we compute the impact that income losses may have on a country's poverty levels and inequality. Our vulnerability scenarios are based on the national policies used to prevent the rapid expansion of the Coronavirus. Additionally, for a sub-sample of 6 countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru) we use Input-Output linkages to estimate direct and indirect shocks to consider how the differences of the productive structures, economic linkages, and labor market characteristics of each country could result in different effects on poverty and inequality. We find a significant increase on poverty headcount ranging from 25% to 33% percent in our different estimations. The results show heterogeneity on the exposure to the shocks. Two main factors explain differences across countries: their level of specialization in activities labeled as essential (e.g., agriculture, public sector, food retail) and their level of employment protection and stability (i.e., type of contract and employment in larger firms). We find a higher vulnerability to the propagation of the shocks in countries with a bigger agricultural sector, and less vulnerability in countries with bigger firms, and lower informality.

Family Poverty in Black and White: Results From a New Poverty Measure

Advances in poverty measurement have opened new opportunities for investigating differences in poverty among racial and ethnic groups. Some researchers have attributed differences in poverty to differences in group characteristics, such as marital status or educational attainment, whereas others have focused on labor market differences or to differential benefits from taxes and transfer payments. This paper brings together all of these approaches to investigate the history of Black–White poverty differentials for families with children from 1980 to 2014. We break the history of the Black–White poverty differential into three “eras”: 1980 to 1992, when the racial differential was largely driven by the business cycle; 1992 to 2002, when the racial differential was reduced substantially; and 2002 to 2014, when the differential could have been strongly influenced by the Great Recession, but was not. For each era, we examine the extent to which the changes in the poverty differential were influenced by changes in tax and transfer payment policy and by changes in family demographic and labor market characteristics. We find that labor market changes and changes in tax credits and transfer payments have strongly influenced the differential, though racial differences in marital structure, family work effort, and heads’ educational attainment also continue to play a role.

Arising from the Ruins: The impact of natural disasters on reconstruction labor wages

The need for reconstruction in the aftermath of natural disasters can lead to increased reconstruction labor wages, resulting in considerably inflated insured and uninsured losses. Based on a difference-in-differences approach using 9,009 catastrophe regions in the United States, we segregate catastrophe induced wage effects from the business cycle development and find a wage surge of up to 50%. In addition to catastrophe-specific factors, wage surge is substantially influenced by local labor market characteristics such as growth stage of the economy, workload per employee, and local wage differentials. We illustrate implications for (re)insurance companies, catastrophe-linked securities and their respective investors, building companies, and governments.

CEO Tenure and Firm Value

ABSTRACT Our study is the first to provide systematic evidence of a hump-shaped CEO tenure-firm value relation. Cross-sectionally, firm value starts to decline after fewer years of CEO tenure in more dynamic industries, if CEOs are less adaptable to changes, and in the presence of greater labor market frictions. Overall, the dynamics of CEO-firm match quality appear to be a first-order driver of the CEO tenure-firm value association, as explained by CEO characteristics (adaptability), firm/industry characteristics (dynamism), and labor market characteristics that facilitate optimal matching between firms and CEOs. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study. JEL Classifications: G30; G34; J24.