Labor Hiring Research Articles

Viabilidade econômica da produção de tambaqui no municí­­pio de Ariquemes-RO

A elevação da renda das famí­­lias e as condições propí­­cias para a atividade aquí­­cola têm permitido ao Brasil elevar a produção de pescado nos últimos anos. Em razão disso, a produção de tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) tornou-se alternativa interessante por apresentar adaptabilidade aos diferentes sistemas de produção e grande aceitação pelos consumidores. Ariquemes, RO, destaca-se por apresentar condições logí­­sticas e edafoclimáticas adequadas para produção dessa espécie. Objetivou-se com o presente trabalho analisar a viabilidade econômica da produção de tambaqui em viveiro escavado no municí­­pio de Ariquemes, RO. Analisaram-se financeiramente receitas e despesas em um ciclo produtivo de 420 dias, tendo como referência valores de 2015. A produção de pescado foi suficiente para quitar o Custo Operacional Total. A Margem Lí­­quida foi de R$ 0,44 kg-1 de peixe. Entretanto, a Receita Total foi insuficiente para cobrir o Custo Total, gerando Renda Lí­­quida negativa de R$ 839,57. Contratação de mão de obra e aquisição de ração foram os itens que mais impactaram e responsáveis por 16,1% e 73,7% do Custo Operacional Efetivo, respectivamente. Verificou-se que a produção de tambaqui em viveiro escavado não se mostrou promissora e economicamente viável e tende a se tornar, no longo prazo, insustentável do ponto de vista econômico.

A Model of Capital Structure Under Labor Market Search

This paper develops a competitive search equilibrium model of capital structure and labor outcomes. In the model, employers design capital structures and compete for workers subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks and labor search frictions. The capital structure policy reflects the trade-off between the strategic benefit of debt in wage bargaining and the cost of debt in labor hiring. The model generates rich comparative static implications regarding the impacts of productivity, credit and labor market factors on leverage and labor outcomes. A calibration yields a large wage dispersion and a highly elastic labor market tightness with respect to productivity.

What determines the performance of small business units?

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the factors that determine the performance of small business units using a field survey conducted in a small jewellery cluster in Mangalore district of Karnataka state (India).Design/methodology/approachThe estimates of the median-based quantile regression model are used to analyse how a change in small firm output is determined by seven key factors such as year of establishment, the source of finance, the source of design, lack of demand, design done by the staff, the number of skilled workers, and constraints.FindingsThe study finds that the factors such as sources of finance, design, customer relation and skilled manpower are the major determinants of the growth of jewellery business. Based on the findings, the study suggests that the invigoration of business performance by high degree of competitiveness, coupled with technological advancement and hiring of skilled labour, is essential for the sustainability of jewellery units.Originality/valueThe study pinpoints the problems and prospects of traditional business units located in an industrial cluster. Further, it suggests the different ways of strengthening the performance of small business units in India.

ПОДАТКОВІ АСПЕКТИ ФОРМУВАННЯ ФОНДУ ОПЛАТИ ПРАЦІ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ В УКРАЇНІ

Consideration of all expenses incurred by the entity due to the hiring of labor is a significant factor in the objective assessment of the level of tax burden and rational management decision making. Theoretical and legal framework of the formation of the enterprise payroll has been explored as a tax basis of personal income tax, military contribution, and single social contribution in Ukraine. The study of scientific approaches has enabled to determine that the payroll of economic entity is a specific fund of financial resources with a clear target that consists in the implementation of payments to employees for their participation in the economic activity of the entity with mandatory state regulation of these relations. In accordance with Ukrainian legislation, enterprise payroll as tax basis includes the amount of accrued wages (by types of payments) due to the terms of employment agreement (contract), as well as amount of remuneration to individuals due to the terms of a civil contract. At the same time, tax allowance is also taken into account while calculating single social contribution and amount of tax benefit while charging personal income tax. The author has found out that payroll taxation is a subsystem of the general system of labor cost taxation at the enterprise. At the same time, the costs of enterprise incurred due to the hiring of labor are not limited with the payroll and compulsory charges on it. They also include payments to employees that do not belong to enterprise payroll, relative social charges as well as the amount of value added tax related to direct labor costs and social accruals in the production price.

Industrial legislation in Australia in 2016

After three years of trying, the Coalition Government finally succeeded in obtaining passage of several key workplace reform statutes in 2016. This followed the outcome of the federal election held on 2 July, delivering the Government a differently composed Senate and a new opportunity to secure support for its legislative program. This review article explains key aspects of the industrial legislation passed by federal Parliament in 2016, including statutes abolishing the specialist road transport industry tribunal, re-establishing the Howard-era regulator for the construction industry, and setting up a new agency to enforce enhanced governance and accountability standards for registered unions and employer organisations. Legislative amendments aimed at resolving the long-running bargaining dispute in Victoria’s Country Fire Authority are also considered, along with the Government’s muted response to the 2015 Productivity Commission review of the workplace relations framework. The article then examines developments at state level, including a major rewrite of Queensland’s industrial legislation, structural changes in New South Wales, and proposed changes to long service leave and the labour hire sector in Victoria. It concludes by noting the irony that just as the federal Government has tasted some success after a long legislative ‘dry spell’, its labour law reform agenda appears limited and piecemeal.

The History of Labour Hire in Namibia: A Lesson for South Africa

Labour hire, the practice of hiring out employees to clients by a labour broker, has been a part of Namibia’s history since the early 1900s in the form of the contract labour system. This form of employment was characterized by inhumanity and unfair labour practices. These employees were subjected to harsh working conditions, inhumane living conditions and influx control. The contract labour system continued until 1977, when it was abolished by the General Law Amendment Proclamation of 1977. It was during the 1990s that the hiring out of employees returned in the form of labour hire. It continued in this form without being regulated until it was banned in the Namibian Labour Act of 2007. In 2009 Africa Personnel Services, Namibia’s largest labour broker, brought a case before the court against the Namibian Government in an attempt to have the ban nullified on grounds of unconstitutionality. It argued that the ban infringed on its right to carry on any trade or business of its choice as contained in section 21(1)(j) of the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia. APS triumphed. It was not until April 2012 that new legislation was promulgated in order to officially lift the ban and to regulate labour hire in its current form. This new legislation came into force in August 2012. Various very important provisions are contained in the Labour Amendment Act 2 of 2012 concerning labour brokers. Part IV of the Employment Services Act 8 of 2011, containing provisions for the regulation of labour brokers as juristic persons per se, was also introduced and came into force in September 2012. The aim of this note is to serve as a lesson to the South African government as to what could happen if labour brokers continue without legislation properly addressing the pitfalls associated with labour brokers. Also, it could serve as an example as to how the employees of a labour broker should be protected. In this regard the history of labour hire and the current strides in Namibia cannot be ignored.

Editorial

The first issue of 2013 contains fifteen contributions dealing with a potpourri of themes. The first contribution is an oratio presented by the retired Dean of the Faculty of Law of the NWU and former editor of PER, Francois Venter, during his exodus in October 2012. He gave his presentation in his mother tongue, Afrikaans, and asks the question if one may assume that being a professor entails belonging to a profession, in other words, an academic profession. The second oratio was a keynote speech delivered by Torsten Stein, the Director of the Institute of European Studies and holder of the chair for European law and European Public Law at Saarland University, Germany. He delivered his speech during November 2012 at the 3rdHuman Rights Indaba on The Role of International Law in Understanding and Applying the Socio-economic Rights in South Africa's Bill of Rights, which was held by the Faculty of Law (NWU, Potchefstroom Campus) in collaboration with the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation. He shared some thoughts about the nature, development and implementation of socio-economic rights within an international and European setting. The next nine articles make up the bulk of this issue. The first one is by Babatunde Fagbayibo, who gives an analytical overview of the common problems affecting supranational attempts in Africa. He argues that Africa's efforts to solidify its unity should be geared towards building on the experiences of past and present experiments at the sub-regional level. Samantha Goosen discusses the very thorny issue of battered women and the elements of self-defence if she has to stand trial for killing her husband. Recent developments in the area of pro bono legal services are the heart of Dave Holness' article. He focuses on legal service delivery for the indigent by attorneys in private practice acting pro bono in civil rather than criminal matters. Henk Kloppers discusses the very topical issue of corporate social responsibility. He gives an overview of the social and ethics committee created in terms of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 as a potential driver of corporate social responsibility. The always newsworthy theme of HIV/AIDS and the question of whether to disclose or not to disclose one's status forms the focal point of Andra le Roux-Kemp's contribution. Chucks Okpaluba gives an overview of South African and Commonwealth decisions dealing with the issue of reasonable and probable cause in the law of malicious prosecution. The never-ending problem of language diversity once again comes to the fore in the article by Loot Pretorius. He asks the question if the recently adopted Use of Official Languages Act 12 of 2012 complies with the normative instructions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. In his second essay on the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008, Stephan Terblanche deals with a number of procedural issues related to the sentencing of child offenders. The last article, which is by Bonnie Venter, deals with the ethical question of whether the payment of kidney donors could be regarded as constitutionally acceptable or not. In the first of five notes, Nqobizwe Ngema asks if the African custom of theleka (the withholding of a wife by her father or guardian from her husband to coerce him to pay the outstanding lobolo) has an impact on the custody of children in the context of the best interest of the child. The central question Phazha Ngandwe asks is how states can discharge their duties and obligations vis-à-vis their nationals without perpetuating the bottlenecks to and the stigma that attaches to migration and thereby upsetting the international and regional integration objectives of the free movement of people. Mzukisi Njotini's note discusses the adequacy of South Africa's measures designed to protect critical information infrastructures. In the second last note, Anthea Wagener considers the practice of South African motor-vehicle insurers of using gender as a rating variable to classify risks into certain classes, thereby determining insurance premiums, and asks if this practice boils down to unfair discrimination. The final note by Anri Botes deals with the history of labour hire in our neighbouring country, Namibia.
 

Effects of Credit on Agricultural Inputs and Technology in the Nkoranza North District, Ghana

The study sought to address the question as to whether agricultural credit affects maize productivity in the Nkoranza North District (NND). The study employed the quasi-experimental and a cross-sectional survey design using the ‘with and without’ method in assessing the effects of microcredit on the production levels of small scale farmers in the district. In all, a total of 310 respondents were randomly selected for the study. Respondents were then grouped into farmers with and without credit. Questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Graphs and tables were used to present descriptive aspect of the results while the independent sample t-test was used to examine the effect of credit on inputs and agricultural technology. The study revealed that credit largely and positively influences the acquisition of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, as well as hiring of labour and acquisition of more farm lands and technology. The study concludes that microcredit improves maize production in the NND. It is recommended that farmers must join the farmers’ associations in their communities to facilitate their access to credit and must use their loans for the intended purposes.

Economic and financial viability of small-scale dairy systems in central Mexico: economic scenario 2010–2018

A simulation Monte Carlo model was used to assess the economic and financial viability of 130 small-scale dairy farms in central Mexico, through a Representative Small-Scale Dairy Farm. Net yields were calculated for a 9-year planning horizon by means of simulated values for the distribution of input and product prices taking 2010 as base year and considering four scenarios which were compared against the scenario of actual production. The other scenarios were (1) total hiring in of needed labour; (2) external purchase of 100% of inputs and (3) withdrawal of subsidies to production. A stochastic modelling approach was followed to determine the scenario with the highest economic and financial viability. Results show a viable economic and financial situation for the real production scenario, as well as the scenarios for total hiring of labour and of withdrawal of subsidies, but the scenario when 100% of feed inputs for the herd are bought-in was not viable.

Racialized illegality: The regulation of informal labor and space

Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in Oakland, California, this paper analyzes the construction of racialized forms of difference between indigenous and nonindigenous Latino workers, based on an examination of their solicitation practices at day labor hiring zones. I reveal how the construction of these racialized divisions shapes how workers organize themselves at hiring zones, and impacts their migration experience and relationship with the host community. I argue that migrants’ experience of illegality must be seen as coterminous with other forms of difference that produces new modes of discrimination not solely reducible to legal status. My concept “racialized illegality” draws attention to how migrants’ experience of illegality exacerbates racial divisions amongst Latino subgroups. Racialized illegality is an analytical tool to push scholarship to assess how an increasingly racially diverse group of Latin American migrants is experiencing migration and settlement processes.

Factors Limiting Adoption of Technologies by Farmers in Catabola Municipality, Angola

Abstract The objective of the paper is to define the factors influencing the adoption of animal traction and/or mechanical-power technology in the conditions of Catabola municipality where hand-tool technology is being used on 99.7% of the area cultivated by small farmers. Primary data collection was conducted in the period July–August 2011; semi-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were the most frequent methods used. In total, 151 small-scale farmers from 9 villages participated in the survey. Ten factors influencing the dependent variable – level of technology used by farmers in combination with hiring of labour – were defined. The factors were statistically analyzed by ANOVA. The area of cultivated land and the educational level of both parents and children were found to be the factors limiting the process of animal traction or mechanical power adoption by small farmers in the Catabola municipality. In addition, a relatively high rate of child labour was observed. With the exclusion of childless families, 62.7% of small farmer families regularly use children aged 0–14 years for field operations. The results confirm that the factor of hiring extra labour is irrelevant in determining the development in technology use by small farmers in the Catabola municipality.

Why Does Labor (Sometimes) Hire Capital? Theory Meets the Data

We analyze the determinants of labor-managed versus capital-managed firm entry. We match firm-level information on a large sample of new manufacturing firms with available proxies of the main determinants of ownership structures according to existing institutional economics theories. We estimate a logit model and quantify the empirical contribution of each argument to explaining labor-managed versus capital-managed firm entry. Our results show that human capital specificity and workers heterogeneity largely explain labor-managed firm entry, while other dimensions, such as limited worker wealth, have a weaker statistical relevance. These findings are robust to different estimation methods and are unlikely to be affected by endogeneity concerns. Our results contribute to the general understanding of the endogenous dynamics of ownership rights distribution in manufacturing firms and to the elaboration of policy initiatives aimed at supporting cooperative modes of firm organization.

Does Welfare Spending Crowd out Charitable Activity? Evidence from Historical England under the Poor Laws

This paper tests the hypothesis that government spending crowds out charitable activity, using data from two years before and after 1800 at the time of the early system of welfare provision in England known as the Poor Laws. A number of papers have found evidence for the ‘crowding out hypothesis’, although the size of the impact varies (see for example Roberts, 1984; Payne, 1998; Gruber and Hungerman, 2007; Andreoni and Payne, 2011). Others have, however, suggested that if similar preferences drive the desire to provide through taxes or directly through charity, then the crowding out effect might be insignificant or even reversed. The idea of crowding out is quite popular, particularly on the conservative side of the policy debate. In the United Kingdom, a comparison with the far higher levels of charitable giving in the United States seems to have been a large part of the inspiration for the Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s concept of a ‘Big Society’ from 2009, when he claimed that ‘the once natural bonds that existed between people – of duty and responsibility – have been replaced with the synthetic bonds of the state – regulation and bureaucracy’. We present a novel way of testing the ‘crowding out hypothesis’, making use of the fact that welfare provision under the Poor Laws in England was decided on the parish level, thus giving the heterogeneity we need to test for the impact of different levels of welfare support within a single country. Our data on Poor Law spending per capita is from 1785 and 1815 and is taken from Marshall (1834). Combined with information on per capita income of charities by county for 1787 and 1815 published by the British Parliament (BPP 1810 and 1820), we use this to test for the impact of public spending on welfare on the income of charities. The causality could conceivably run either way, so we instrument for public welfare provision with the suitability of the county for arable agriculture, as given by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [1] . As is argued by Boyer (1990), welfare provision was more generous in areas with arable rather than pastoral agriculture. The seasonal nature of arable farming meant that the politically powerful labor hiring farmers would have an interest in mitigating low season costs of labor by diversifying them onto other rate payers through the Poor Law system. We fail to find evidence of a crowding out effect - in fact we find a positive relationship. A one percent increase in Poor Law spending per capita results in a 1.5 percent increase in charitable income per capita. Our results provide, we believe, considerable backing to those who argue that a ‘big society’ does not necessarily require ‘small government’. [1] ‘Crop suitability index (class) for low input level rain-fed cereals’, i.e. using traditional methods of agriculture, from GAEZ, Global Agro-Ecological Zones, at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Long-Term Implications of the Burgeoning Informal Labour Hiring in Indian Manufacturing Sector: A System Dynamics Analysis

The manufacturing sector in India, in the last few decades, has witnessed a burgeoning informal labour hiring. The rigidities of the labour laws, the growing global competitiveness, risk of future business downturn and the desire of taming the aggressive trade unions might have encouraged the Indian industries in adopting the path of labour informalisation. The perceived advantages of low wages and high retrenchment flexibility from informal labour hiring may be a myopic view. The deteriorating industrial relation climate in Indian industries and not exploiting full advantage of economies of scale may also be due to the increasing informal labour component in the total workforce. A system dynamics model has been developed in the paper to simulate scenarios with flexible formal:informal labour-mix ratios to analyze the long-term policy implications in the Indian manufacturing sector. Recommendations to prevent a potential disaster due to the abnormal growth in informal labour component in the manufacturing sector have also been made. The paper is likely to provide useful insights to the industry leaders and policy makers in the manufacturing sector and an optimal flexibility mix of formal–informal labour component for a healthy operation. An experiential validation of recommendations is included from an auto-component manufacturing unit.

Модель компетенций менеджера по персоналу компании Price Water House Coopers

The high rate of technological progress, the active use of information technologies in all spheres of human life, the changing nature and content of the work led to changes in the personnel management of modern organizations. In the context of increasingly complex technological and business processes significantly increases the risk of making a mistake in the selection, adaptation, evaluation and motivation of workers in the Russian and foreign companies. In this regard, the modern theory and practice of management suggested using the competence approach in personnel management. The article emphasizes the importance and significance of the development of competency model workers in modern organizations. It describes the process of creating a competency model HR manager of Price Water House Coopers. The author pays attention to the study of basic functions of labor hiring manager selected company, identify the required competencies for successful work. The study, taking into account the opinions of experts developed a competency model was the HR manager of Price Water House Coopers with indicators of behavior. This model has been tested for validity and recommended service personnel of the company.

Dominance of Jats is unabated

This article is an engagement with the issues of caste and dominance in the light of field data collected from five villages of western Uttar Pradesh. Against the background of some empirical and conceptual studies, the article presents an analysis, in terms of caste, of the ownership of land and agricultural assets, occupational and educational achievement and khap-based solidarity. The analysis shows that the resources available in the villages are highly concentrated in the hands of the Jats. Being the most powerful or dominant caste, the Jats control the village level affairs and use various means such as labour hiring and wage payment arrangement, the provision of natural fodder and lavatory facilities, informal credit arrangement and the institution of panchayat, to control the life of the villagers. The article narrates various acts of dominance of the Jats over the Scheduled Castes or marginalised castes. It ends with the observation that regardless of aggressive political mobilisation among the Scheduled Castes or marginalised castes in the recent years, no caste or community has developed the capacity to object to the dominance of the Jats in the villages.

A Markov-switching structural vector autoregressive model of boom and bust in the Australian labour market

Major economic events, such as the global financial crisis, are episodes of identifiable duration that differ from other time periods. Using monthly data on the unemployment rate, labour force participation rate and employment for Australia for the period from 1978 to 2012, we estimate a Markov-switching SVAR model to examine the relationship between unemployment and labour force participation and the performance of the Australian labour market. Three distinct labour market regimes are identified. We find that the labour market switches between periods of low unemployment and high participation, prolonged periods of relative stability and short, sharp periods of high unemployment and low participation. A key finding is that, due to the behaviour of workers not in the labour force, the long-term effect of an upswing in labour hiring results in a lower unemployment rate and a lower labour force participation rate.

From Asian to Global Financial Crisis: Recovery Amidst Expanding Labour Precarity

This article outlines the labour impacts and social consequences of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and 2008–09 global financial crisis on Southeast Asia. Both had adverse consequences on output, employment, income and poverty in the region, although the impact of the global financial crisis was much less severe compared to the Asian financial crisis. Economies recovered quickly from both crises. However, labour markets continue to be characterised by informal, vulnerable and precarious employment. The crises and the ensuing efforts of employers to resort to increased flexibility in labour hiring in both crisis and recovery periods fanned labour protests despite the diminutive size of the trade union movement and the underdeveloped system of industrial relations in most countries. In turn, these protests have triggered national and regional debates on rules for labour contracting, minimum wage adjustments and social protection. These debates have remained unresolved even as the region is gearing up for fuller economic integration in 2015 labelled as the ASEAN Economic Community.

The determinants of the size distribution of firms in Uganda

The size distribution of firms in Uganda is highly skewed to the right both in 1997 and 2005. In this article I examine a potential explanation behind the shape of the size distribution in Uganda and identify, using data from 1997, a distortion from the tax environment that seems to bring together observed patterns in firm size. Two changes in tax audit strategy generate an increase in expected costs from taxation and entice entrepreneurs to restrain their hiring of labour in order to pass under tax officials’ radar. First, we observe a steep rise in audit probability at 10 employees, which generates a cluster of firms at 8 employees. Second, tax officials start relying on sales instead of size to set audit targets for firms with more than 25 employees. This change also implies that tax officials extract more taxes and bribes from the larger firms they inspect. The effect of this second change is so important that it generates a measurable discontinuity in the density of firm size around 27 employees. I show that most of the 1997 patterns are still observable almost a decade later.

Labor Hiring, Investment, and Stock Return Predictability in the Cross Section

We study the impact of labor market frictions on asset prices. In the cross section of US firms, a 10 percentage point increase in the firm’s hiring rate is associated with a 1.5 percentage point decrease in the firm’s annual risk premium. We propose an investment-based model with stochastic labor adjustment costs to explain this finding. Firms with high hiring rates are expanding firms that incur high adjustment costs. If the economy experiences a shock that lowers adjustment costs, these firms benefit the most. The corresponding increase in firm value operates as a hedge against these shocks, explaining the lower risk premium of these firms in equilibrium.