Limited Labor Market Research Articles

Regulation of temporary agency work and the modern labor market: a case study of Slovenia

Temporary Agency Work (TAW) is a unique employment model involving a three-way relationship between a posted worker, an employment agency, and a client organization, enabling clients to adjust their labour force in response to fluctuating demands, but also raising concerns about job precariousness. Achieving a balance between flexibility and employment and social security is crucial for integrating TAW effectively into the labour market.TAW arrangements within the labour markets of the EU are confronted by specific contemporary dynamics, including fluctuations and seasonality of labour demands, labour scarcity in some professions and labour migration. Building on a case study of the TAW legislation development in Slovenia, this study aimed to elucidate the repercussions of these challenges on the regulatory landscape of TAW, potentially illuminating the prospective evolution of labour law standards throughout the EU.Despite the inherent limitations of case studies, the findings suggest that a detailed legal framework providing strong rights for posted workers and controlled flexibility for clients can be operational in addressing particular labour market challenges. TAW has the potential for further growth, particularly in supporting groups with limited labour market access and in filling professional gaps, by facilitating the integration of foreign workers.

Quid pro quota: a cross-country study on the impacts of immigration quotas on early-stage entrepreneurship

AbstractWe study the impacts of immigration quotas and immigrant eligibility restrictions on destination countries’ early-stage entrepreneurial activity. Taking advantage of cross-country variation in immigration quotas and eligibility restrictions, we find that increases in the strictness of labor migration quotas and eligibility requirements are associated with significantly less early-stage entrepreneurship in the short run. Further, we find two important sources of heterogeneity that impact our results. First, these results are driven by a connection between quotas and early-stage necessity-driven entrepreneurship—our results lose significance when adding opportunity-driven entrepreneurship to the analysis. Second, the magnitude of the relationship between quotas and early-stage entrepreneurial activity is lower when analyzing female entrepreneurship. Overall, our results suggest that immigrants clearly influence entrepreneurship positively, but the overall welfare effects on the host country of marginal increases in entrepreneurial activity associated with a relaxation of labor market restrictions are more nuanced. At the same time, our results also suggest room for immigration policy to improve the welfare of immigrants and natives. Importantly, our estimates likely act as a lower bound given that we are not able to measure impacts in the long run. Because immigrants’ participation in the labor market is often delayed by labor market restrictions after entry, estimates of the impact of quotas and other restrictions that limit entry into the host country would likely yield more negative results given a longer time horizon.

The Situation of Public Employment in Small Villages in Hungary

The author started to deal with the public employment programme as an instrument of active employment policy in Hungary in the last 9 years. She perceived that the people living in disadvantaged settlements have limited labour market opportunities. In this research, the focus will be on small villages with less than 500 inhabitants in Hungary. In these settlements, the municipality is very often the only employer and there are almost no job opportunities available other than public employment. In small villages, the distorted demographic age structure, low educational attainment, low-income levels, inadequate infrastructure, physical distance from the cities, multi-generational unemployment, and often a high proportion of Roma inhabitants, make an already difficult and peripheral situation and employment difficult. The paper aims to analyse public employment programmes at a deeper level according to their role in the development of small villages and to identify good practices and successful public employment programmes in social cooperatives implemented by municipalities. The results of a questionnaire survey on the use of public employment will be presented as a commonly used employment solution in peripheral areas.

Emigration From Post-Communist Central Europe After 1989 Interpreted Within the Aspirations/Capabilities Framework

In the period of post-communist transition, Central Europe witnessed complex and multifaceted mobility processes; permanent outmigration, of an ethnic or labour-related nature, coexisted with temporary, seasonal, or cross-border movements and an increasing influx of foreigners. To study these complex processes, we have chosen to apply a holistic and comprehensive approach, rather than limit conceptual considerations to one theory of migration determinants. We focus on eleven post-communist countries that joined the European Union (EU-11) and on the period extending from around 1989, covering the EU’s eastward enlargement, to the present. The aim of this study is twofold: first, we propose a general conceptual framework, based on the aspirations/capabilities approach, to present the main determinants of emigration from this part of the European continent. Second, in relation to each determinant, we formulate research questions postulated by selected theories of international migration and present the evidence, based on existing empirical studies, that addresses these questions. The paper contributes to the literature by providing a broad interpretation of post-transition mobility and pointing to commonly overlooked explanatory factors. We highlight the importance of economic factors that have enhanced and directed the outward migration from the EU-11 to selected EU member states and selected economic sectors; in particular, as regards capabilities, these factors include the lifting of labour market restrictions, high demand in the secondary sector of labour markets, and the roles of migration networks and the migration industry. Emphasis is also placed on aspirational factors, such as labour market failures and the substantial aspirational gap resulting from improvements in high educational attainment in the countries of origin. The aspirations/capabilities approach serves well as a general framework of migration determinants, but its explanatory power is enhanced by reference to other, more specific theories of migration. We show that a combination of the complementary approaches provides a more refined and in-depth picture of migration from the region.
 * This article belongs to a special issue on “Demographic Developments in Eastern and Western Europe Before and After the Transformation of Socialist Countries”.

Path Dependence of Vietnam’s Regional Development: Roots from the Colonial Rule

The Vietnam economy observes stark contrasts in its regional economies, particularly the North-South economic structure. How and from when did these patterns of the North-South regional imbalance appear? This study attempted to trace grounded reasons for this regional divergence from a comparative historical political economy approach, focusing on the French colonial era. The main finding shows a significant dependence of the North-South’s regional development on its past economic structure during the colony, which could be named a socalled path dependence. Differences in colonial policies by region widened the economic discrepancies between the North (Tonkin) and the South (Cochinchina) and provided limited socioeconomic synergy among sectors by region. The limited labour movement and market integration also reinforced regional production patterns. On the one hand, the South promoted specialisation in agriculture, with rice production, industrial crops, trade, and commercial activities, which became the primary sources of its prosperity. In contrast, the northern pattern of diversification of productions essentially sustained the North

Foreign firm characteristics, labour market restrictions and FDI spillovers: Evidence from Moldova

AbstractThis paper investigates how productivity spillovers from foreign to domestic firms are affected by foreign firm characteristics and labour market conditions in Moldova. We use firm‐level administrative panel data and annual survey region‐sector indicators of labour market conditions in 2005–2014. Baseline regressions show that domestic firms benefit from backward FDI spillovers, while we find no evidence of horizontal or forward spillovers. Spillover effects are heterogeneous and depend on the ownership structure and age of foreign firms. Domestic firms in upstream sectors benefit from both wholly foreign‐owned companies (WFOC) and joint ventures (JV). However, JVs need less time in the market for positive spillovers to materialise, while WFOCs only lead to larger spillover effects when they are older. In regions and sectors where firms experience fewer labour market restrictions, backward FDI spillovers are larger. Interacting foreign firm characteristics with labour market restrictions, we find that spillovers through the labour market channel materialise only for older FDI, regardless of ownership type. The results are in line with our expectation that WFOCs need more time than JVs to develop linkages with local suppliers and lead to spillovers through this channel. Moreover, in developing countries labour market restrictions reduce labour mobility and consequently, the size of FDI spillovers across industries.

Boost or Penalty? Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Entrepreneurial Experiences on Employment

Entrepreneurship is a way to adequately use one’s own qualifications and expertise, circumvent labor market restrictions and achieve professional and social progress. Starting-up, however, bears significant risks of failure and former founders often need to apply for wage employment afterwards. This is particularly true for migrants and refugees, who face obstacles on the institutionalized markets of developed economies. In this paper, we examine whether and how entrepreneurial experiences (EE) of former migrant founders affect subsequent hiring success. To this end, we conduct a pre-registered correspondence test, sending out fictitious applications to job vacancies in Germany. We use four main application profiles:; (voluntary business exit, forced business exit, wage employment, and unemployment) and compare their rates of positive firm feedback. Our results suggest that EE fare equally well with experiences in wage employment, but significantly improve the chances for a call-back compared to unemployment. Contrary to expectations, we do not find stronger effects of EE for migrant women and refugees in application processes.

The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

From Workplace to Joblessness: The Determinants of Post-Internship Graduate Unemployment in South Africa

One of the pressing concerns for governments and policy makers across the world is youth unemployment. What is even more devastating is the growing graduate unemployment, particularly in developing countries, and South Africa is no exception. Graduate unemployment in South Africa continues to increase at an alarming rate. Without drastic interventions, this socio-economic problem may sadly double in size in the next decade. Work experience programmes, such as internships, are increasingly supported to address youth unemployment, particularly among graduates. However, the effectiveness of the current interventions to the unemployment problem are questionable. This paper draws from the perspectives of 50 participants to explore the determinants of post-internship graduate unemployment. In particular, this paper adopts the lenses of mismatch theory of unemployment to explain why young people are vulnerable in the labour market irrespective of their education and work experience. The examined perspectives revealed that, beyond limited labour market demand, there is also an increasing “work experience-job mismatch” leading to post-internship graduate unemployment. Due to the number of factors, including the skills mismatch problem, the transition from higher education to full-time employment is difficult for many graduates.
 
 Received: 30 November 2021 / Accepted: 11 February 2022 / Published: 5 March 2022

The Political Economy of Skill Formation in a Rentier State: The Case of Oman

Context: Against a backdrop of dwindling oil resources and increasing unemployment rates, the government of Oman has set out to diversify its industry and establish a knowledge-based economy. In this context, forming a highly-skilled Omani workforce is considered to be of crucial importance. Yet, the national TVET system suffers from low social status, poor quality, and limited labour market connectivity. This paper offers an analysis of Oman's TVET system in the socio-economic and cultural context of a rentier state. Approach: We draw on the political economy of skills and socio-cultural approaches that understand TVET systems and the broader skills regimes in which they are embedded as part and expression of particular patterns of the social organisation of work. This helps to locate TVET systems' strengths and weaknesses in the context of their underlying social relations instead of considering them as mere dysfunctionalities at the systemic level. This paper draws on an unpublished study on TVET for industrialisation commissioned by an Omani line ministry in cooperation with an international organisation. For this study, the authors carried out a literature review, undertook two field trips to Oman in 2018 and 2019 and conducted forty semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from government, private companies, business associations, and TVET and higher education institutions. Findings: Our analysis highlights how skill formation in Oman is shaped by the socio-economic and cultural context of the Omani rentier state. First, the availability of cheap expatriate labour and Omanis' traditional preference for public sector jobs culminate in poor incentives for employing Omani nationals in the private sector. Second, reluctant employer attitudes towards national skill formation deepen quality issues in the TVET system, especially with regard to work-based training. This reinforces negative perceptions of the local workforce, which in turn contribute to biased employment patterns. Both social processes mutually reinforce each other, eventually preventing the emergence of strong national skill formation dynamics. Conclusions: While immediate structural change appears challenging, it is evident that reforms of the TVET system alone will not lead to its sustainable improvement. More research into how skill formation relates to Oman's specific socio-economic structures, how employment dynamics relate to educational credentials and how cultural traditions shape educational and work practices is needed.

Work Primacy and the Social Incorporation of Unaccompanied, Undocumented Latinx Youth in the United States

Abstract This study investigates the social incorporation of unaccompanied, undocumented Latinx youth workers as they come of age in the United States. Based on research with undocumented Central American and Mexican young adults who grew up as unaccompanied minors in Los Angeles, California, the data reveal that the pressures of financial obligations to families in the sending country and their own sobrevivencia (survival) in the United States, along with limited financial and social resource and mobility, produce a social incorporation trajectory shaped by the primacy of work. Work primacy conditions youth’s educational opportunities, community embeddedness, and family relationships and limits unaccompanied, undocumented youth’s ability to establish and maintain social networks with consequences for their social incorporation. The precarious occupations within the secondary labor market that are characterized by long hours, low wages, labor market restrictions, and unsafe and unsanitary work conditions limit opportunities for socioeconomic mobility for all youth. Women and Indigenous youth are distinctly affected by work primacy. This research advances our understanding of immigrant youth’s lives by examining how institutional context, familial obligations across borders, and limited ethnic networks play a role in shaping the incorporation experiences of unaccompanied, undocumented Latinx immigrants as they come of age in the United States.

Hemmnisse der digitalen Transformation bei KMU

Abstract Digitization is probably one of the greatest opportunities in recent years and, at the same time, one of the greatest challenges of our time. The aim of this article is to find possible answers to the question of which factors are considered as barriers to innovation for SMEs and which are suitable for promoting innovations in the field of digitization. For this purpose, a survey conducted by the IHK Region Stuttgart among its member companies in 2018 is evaluated. The barriers identified can be divided into four categories: 1. Innovation management in the company/lack of knowledge of the market, 2. Funding bottlenecks beyond research and development (R&D), 3. Labor market restrictions (education/training of skilled workers) and 4. Bureaucracy and legal regulations/regulation. Overall, as the analysis shows, there are both internal and external barriers to innovation. The companies cite regulatory and bureaucratic barriers as the most important obstacles to innovation. The regression analysis shows, among other things, that companies that state the regulatory framework as problematic have a greater likelihood of developing a strategy than others as well as employing a digitization officer.

The Long Run Impact of a Macroeconomic Crisis on Schooling Outcomes

The effect of an aggregate economic shock on human capital formation is theoretically ambiguous. When real wages fall during a recession, households face both a drop in their real incomes, as well as lower wages in available jobs. The impacts, particularly in the long run, on educational attainment and labour market outcomes is uncertain. I exploit the heterogeneous impact of an economic recession as measured by the variation in rice price increases to find that, for net consumers of rice, higher rice price increases are associated with small declines in school participation for younger children, who have limited labour market opportunities, and large declines in employment for older children, who face higher opportunity costs of schooling. The results are reversed for net producers of rice. The fall in wages protects older children from suffering adverse long-run consequences to their educational attainment. However, children who face higher wages during critical junctures in their schooling are more likely to start working and face reductions in human capital investments. These differences in investments have significant long-term effects on later-life income, employment status and sector of employment.

\u2018I Dream of Going Home\u2019: Gendered Experiences of Adolescent Syrian Refugees in Jordan\u2019s Azraq Camp

Although the influx of Syrian refugees in Jordan initially attracted considerable international humanitarian support, funding has declined recently, and labour market restrictions have tightened. Adolescents in Azraq refugee camp face particular challenges due to its unique characteristics, including strong surveillance and security measures and a remote desert location, which affords only limited mobility and income-generating opportunities. Instead of offering protection and security for displaced Syrians, the camp has become a ‘violent space’. This article explores the experiences of younger (10–12 years) and older (15–17 years) adolescent girls and boys in Azraq camp. It provides insights into their gendered experiences in four capability domains—education, voice and agency, bodily integrity and freedom from violence, and psychosocial wellbeing—highlighting key vulnerabilities that need to be addressed to deliver the Leave No One Behind agenda. The findings suggest that when planning programmes and services, the government, international community and civil society actors working with adolescent refugees in Azraq need to take into consideration spatial dimensions of vulnerability. Such efforts should ensure that programmes are designed and implemented in an inclusive and accessible way so that male and female adolescents in specific camp settings can overcome the constraints that they uniquely face.

Fathers matter: Intrahousehold responsibilities and children's wellbeing during the COVID-19 lockdown in Italy

The lockdown imposed during the spring of 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic upset families lives, in addition to the health consequences of the virus, forcing parents to completely reorganize their labor, domestic work and childcare time. At the same time, school closures forced children to rearrange their lives and learning processes: in Italy, schools and nurseries were closed for four months, and the incidence and quality of distance learning activities was heterogeneous across education levels and among schools. Using real-time survey data on families with under-16 children collected in April 2020, which include information on parents’ market and household work, and their perception of their children's wellbeing, we estimate how the lockdown has affected children's use of time, their emotional status and their home learning, and whether the reallocation of intrahousehold responsibilities during the lockdown played a role in this process. Changes in the parental division of household tasks and childcare, mostly induced by the labor market restrictions imposed during the lockdown, point to a greater involvement of fathers in childcare and homeschooling activities. This positive variation in fathers’ involvement is accompanied by an increase in children's emotional wellbeing and by a reduction in TV and passive screen time. On the other hand, the quality of children's home learning does not appear to depend on which parent is overseeing their work, but rather on the type of distance learning activities proposed by their teachers.

The macroeconomic effects of covid-19:the imperative need for a Keynesian solution

A very severe recession has hit the global economy in the wake of covid-19. The exact magnitude of this shock is uncertain, but many believe that the setback in GDP will be on a scale similar to, if not worse than, the first years of the Great Recession. As such, there is an imperative need for policy actions of a Keynesian nature, as have already been implemented in many countries. Given the atypical circumstances of the crisis, a new type of supply-side-oriented Post-Keynesian policy should be followed. The purpose of this policy should be to support the firms, in order to prevent them from destroying their production capacity and to move forward with the ecological transition. This paper uses the case of Denmark to present a demand-driven Post-Keynesian stock-flow consistant (SFC) model with labour market restrictions based. It highlights some aspects of the negative economic impact of covid-19 on the Danish economy and of the policies adopted by the Danish Parliament.

COVID-19 Impact and Mitigation Policies

We develop an integrated epidemiological-macroeconomic model to analyze the interplay between the COVID-19 outbreak and economic activity, as a tool for capacity building purposes. We illustrate a workhorse framework that combines a rich epidemiological model with an economic block to shed light on the tradeoffs between saving lives and preserving economic outcomes under various mitigation policies and scenarios calibrated for emerging market and developing economies. In our benchmark setup, we link the effective contact frequency and labor supply decisions to the current state of the disease progression, allowing for relevant behavioral responses that introduce multiple feedback channels. We showcase the effects of various “smart” mitigation measures, e.g. improved quarantine capacity or targeted labor market restrictions, to alleviate the tradeoffs between health-related outcomes and economic activity, including in response to a second infection wave. The discovery of treatment or vaccine, and the possibility of temporary immunity for the recovered individuals are also considered. The model is further extended to a multisector framework to analyze the sectoral allocation effects of the COVID-19 shock.

Serving the ‘Divine Economy’: St Joseph’s Asylum for Aged and Virtuous Females, Dublin, 1836–1922

St Joseph’s Asylum for Aged and Virtuous Females catered for Catholic aged, single women from 1836 to 1993. The focus of this article on the period 1836–1922. Founded prior to the 1838 advent of poor law, St Joseph’s embodied an alternative miniature welfare system for its inmates, which served the wider ‘divine economy’. Operating at a time of limited labour market opportunities for females, functional age and inability to earn serve as important factors for considering why individuals might enter, particularly younger inmates. Chronological and cultural definitions of age also remain significant. This article discusses St Joseph’s management, financing, model of life, values and provides a sense of life within, to demonstrate how this system functioned. Despite a paucity of source material documenting lived experience, inmate emotional responses are tentatively probed. It argues that Catholicism is an important lens for understanding not solely the ethos and funding of St Joseph’s but the rhythm of daily life and death.

Career decisions of Indian female talent: implications for gender-sensitive talent management

PurposeTalent scarcity in emerging economies such as India poses challenges for companies, and limited labour market participation among well-educated women has been observed. The reasons that professionals decide not to pursue a further corporate career remain unclear. By investigating career decision-making, this article aims to highlight (1) the contextual factors that impact those decisions, (2) individuals' agency to handle them and (3) the implications for talent management (TM).Design/methodology/approachFollowing a qualitative research design, computer-aided analysis was conducted on interviews with 24 internationally experienced Indian business professionals. A novel application of neo-institutionalism in the Indian context was combined with the family-relatedness of work decisions (FRWD) model.FindingsCareer decisions indicate that rebellion against Indian societal and family expectations is essential to following a career path, especially for women. TM as part of the current institutional framework serves as a legitimising façade veiling traditional practices that hinder females' careers.Research limitations/implicationsInterviewees adopted a retrospective perspective when describing their career decisions; therefore, different views might have existed at the moment of decision-making.Practical implicationsDesign and implementation of gender-sensitive TM adjusted to fit the specific Indian context can contribute to retaining female talent in companies and the labour market.Originality/valueThe importance of gender-sensitive TM can be concluded from an empirical study of the context-based career decision-making of experienced business professionals from India. The synthesis of neo-institutionalism, the FRWD model and the research results provides assistance in mapping talent experiences and implications for overcoming the challenges of talent scarcity in India.

Involuntary unemployment and the business cycle

Can a model with limited labor market insurance explain standard macro and labor market data jointly? We construct a monetary model in which: i) the unemployed are worse off than the employed, i.e. unemployment is involuntary and ii) the labor force participation rate varies with the business cycle. To illustrate key features of our model, we start with the simplest possible framework. We then integrate the model into a medium-sized DSGE model and show that the resulting model does as well as existing models at accounting for the response of standard macroeconomic variables to monetary policy shocks and two technology shocks. In addition, the model does well at accounting for the response of the labor force and unemployment rate to these three shocks.