Low-skilled Jobs Research Articles

Digital skills in context: Working with robots in lower-skilled jobs

Digital skills are increasingly presented as essential for work and labour market inclusion, with fears the low-skilled could be left behind. Lack of clarity about these new skill demands and limited evidence from the workplace have prompted calls to unpack skill requirements in specific sectors and occupations. This article analyses digital skills in relation to wider skills and knowledge required in a job, and examines the influence of the workplace, sector and national institutional context. The study focuses on robotic technologies in lower-skilled jobs, drawing on the experience of food and drink processing operatives, and logistic porters and service workers in public hospitals, in Norway and the UK. The article contributes to the conceptualisation of digital skills, probes country differences, and offers a grounded understanding of the challenges presented for workers in lower-skilled jobs.

“The First One to Pick up the Phone”: Forms of Recruitment for Low-Skilled Jobs

AbstractBased on a qualitative study on the employability of workers without vocational qualification in five different industries, this article examines hiring practices in the labour market segment of low-skilled jobs from a sociology of conventions perspective. In the absence of educational signals, employers use personal networks and trial workdays to reduce the uncertainty regarding the quality of job applicants. However, professional and technical intermediaries become more important, thus leading to the formalization of recruitment channels and valorisation.

Validation of the MAastricht Instrument of Sustainable Employability (MAISE-NL) Adapted for Employees in Low-Skilled Jobs (MAISE-Easy).

Background: Sustainable employability (SE) is important for work organizations. Recently, the MAastricht Instrument for Sustainable Employability (MAISE-NL) was developed and validated. This study describes the development and validation of an adapted version of the MAISE-NL, the MAISE-Easy, which can be used for employees in low-skilled jobs. Methods: The adaptation of the MAISE-NL was based on six focus groups with employees in low-skilled jobs in various sectors. The MAISE-Easy was distributed among employees in five organizations. The response rate (n = 1033) was 53%. Construct validity, reliability and criterion validity were analyzed by means of principal component analysis (PCA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Cronbach’s alpha and correlational analyses. Results: The MAISE-Easy included 17 scales divided over four main areas: (1) level of SE; (2) factors affecting SE; (3) overall responsibility for SE; (4) responsibility for factors affecting SE. Construct validity, reliability and criterion validity were adequate to good. Conclusions: The MAISE-Easy is a well-validated instrument for measuring SE among employees in low-skilled jobs in terms of the level of SE, factors affecting SE, responsibility for SE and responsibility for factors affecting SE. MAISE-Easy is recommended for both needs assessments and evaluation research in as yet underserved groups of low-skilled workers.

A STUDY ON THE ROLE OF COMPETENCY MAPPING WITH REFERENCE TO RYDON INDUSTRIES PVT LTD, COIMBATORE

Human Resource Management is the process of bringing people and organizations together so that the goals of each are met. Nowadays, it is not possible to show a good financial or operating report unless your personal relations are in order. Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge-based jobs are increasing while low-skilled jobs are decreasing. This calls for future skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives. Indian organizations are also witnessing a change in systems, management cultures, and philosophy due to the global alignment of Indian organizations. There is a need for multi-skill development. Competency Mapping is the process of identifying key competencies for an organization, its jobs, and functions within it. Competency Mapping is important and is an essential activity. Every well-managed firm should have well-defined roles and a list of competencies required to perform each role effectively. Competency Mapping identifies an individual's strengths and weaknesses in order to help them better understand themselves and to show them where career development efforts need to be directed. Competency mapping is not only done for confirmed employees of an organization; it can also be done for contract workers or for those seeking employment to emphasize the specific skills that would make them valuable to a potential employer. These kinds of skills can be determined when one is ready to do the work. Competency Mapping is one of the most accurate means of identifying the job and behavioural competencies of an individual in an organization. Competency is a set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to perform a job effectively and efficiently. A competency is something that describes how a job might be done excellently. A competency only describes what has to be done, not how. A core competency is something that cannot be copied and it is the pillar upon which an individual rests.

Social (Im)mobility in Low-skilled and Low-wage Immigrant Niches

In the last two decades, many labor migrants have arrived in the Nordic countries where they concentrate in certain low-wage and low-skilled jobs – immigrant niches. The article analyzes the scope of social (im)mobility in terms of occupational careers, income change, and job stability for native and foreign-born workers in immigrant niches in the low-skilled and low-wage section of the labor market. The case study is Norway’s fish processing industry, where labor immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe have largely replaced Norwegian-born workers in manual jobs since 2004 and now dominate the workplace alongside a smaller number of non-Western immigrant workers. The article uses full population register data (n = 4164, Microdata.no) to analyze differences in workers’ social trajectories between 2009 and 2018. Results show significant variation between workers: Norwegian-born (non-immigrant) workers appear to have greater upward social mobility than EU11 immigrant workers, who in turn do better than non-Western immigrant workers.

Proletarianization and gateways to precarization in the context of land-based investments for agricultural commercialization in Lao PDR

Labor is central to the debates on global land-based investment. Proponents purport that these investments are an avenue for rural transformation from resource- to wage-based livelihoods through the generation of employment and contribution to poverty reduction. Drawing on a recent, unique national dataset on land concessions in Lao PDR, this paper uses an agrarian political economy lens to investigate how land-based investments live up to this expectation. The paper analyzes potential determinants of the degree to which different social groups engage in wage-labor within land-based investments. Results show that while land-based investments create a significant absolute number of jobs, former land users were offered predominantly low-skilled and seasonal jobs. The effects of these investments on rural employment are uneven depending on degrees of land and resource dispossession, the extent of job creation, and the availability of alternative opportunities in the region. In the majority of cases, former land users, especially women were pushed into precarious conditions through three processes: dispossession without proletarianization; limited proletarianization; and adverse proletarianization. We argue that the promotion of land-based investments as an approach for rural development, particularly along the gradient of transforming resource- to wage-labor based livelihoods, is ineffective without concurrent opportunities within and beyond the agricultural sector to absorb the labor reallocated from traditional livelihoods. Enforcing labor regulations, including restrictions on hiring of foreign labor, compliance with minimum wages, and relevant skills transfer are essential to minimize precarization and increase benefits for local people. Further, protecting peasants’ individual and common land-use rights is imperative to minimize the concurrence of precarization and increasing traditional vulnerability.

Understanding the Scarring Effect of Recessions

This paper documents that the earnings cost of job loss is concentrated among workers who find reemployment in lower-skill occupations, and that the cost and incidence of such occupation displacement is higher for workers who lose their job during a recession. I propose a model where hiring is endogenously more selective during recessions, leading some unemployed workers to optimally search for reemployment in lower-skill jobs. The model accounts for existing estimates of the size and cyclicality of the present value cost of job loss, and the cost of entering the labor market during a recession. (JEL E24, E32, J23, J24, J31, J63, J64)

Why do citizens prefer high-skilled immigrants to low-skilled immigrants? Identifying causal mechanisms of immigration preferences with a survey experiment

Why do citizens prefer high-skilled immigrants to low-skilled immigrants? To understand the causal mechanism behind this tendency among citizens, we conducted a vignette survey experiment that enables us to clarify the role of multiple mediators. We specifically focused on three key factors that have been proposed in existing research as those that could lead citizens to welcome high-skilled immigrants: expectations of economic contribution, welfare contribution, and small crime potential. We found that the skill premium was fully eliminated when natives were informed that immigrants would be engaged in low-skill jobs in the host country, which underscores the essential role that post-migration work plays in the acceptance of immigrants by natives. Our findings provide suggestive evidence that natives welcome high-skilled immigrants simply because they expect economic benefits from high-skilled immigrants, not because they expect them to contribute to welfare or be less likely to commit crimes.

Re-emergence of Asia in the New Industrial Era

The dawn of the new industrial era (Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4 IR, Industry 4.0, “McLuhan” stage) characterised by IT-based modern technologies and global value chains has regained the Asian economic strength. Overarching impact of 4 IR is expected on the physical, digital and biological world. Several Asian countries have maintained high growth and have displayed true globalization by possessing elements and desiderata of the 4 IR. Asia has also displayed its innovative strength in many determinants of 4 IR. Although a gradual transition from labour to capital to talent is slated to happen, Asia will have its own amalgam of the three case-by-case. For example, some Asian countries have demographic assets to use labour in low-skill jobs and they will continue to compete as low-cost manufacturing hubs for a substantially long period despite high proportion of ageing people and less birth rate. Human talent-intensive services like healthcare and education stand to benefit from 4 IR by way of cost-reduction but concerted efforts of public and private sectors are needed in these areas. Unemployment and inequality may rise initially but may be offset to a sizeable extent by new jobs and engagements and also by reorientation of knowledge, skill and attitude, the three realms of education, through continuous training, skill upgradation and self-renewal. There could be eugenic effects such as defect-rectification at early developmental stages and ultimately moving towards designer human beings in the long long run. Significant role of the state, policy and mode of governance was observed in bringing about the 4 IR. It is hoped that while thriving on the fruits of 4 IR, all stakeholders would also unite for maintaining a vigil and holding up the human values like conscience, creativity and empathy to mar the possible ill-effects of the 4IR that could be dreaded in its most dehumanized form in the long run.

Spatial disparity in gender pay gap and female workforce participation: a sub-national level study in Indian manufacturing sector

PurposeThe paper intends to identify the factors that determine the variations in the gender pay gap and female workforce participation at low-skill manufacturing job across Indian states over the time period 2006–2014.Design/methodology/approachGender pay gap is measured in two ways: one is scale insensitive and second one is scale sensitive. To construct scale-sensitive gender pay gap measure wage discrimination index is used. For main analysis, a panel framework is used. Fixed effect model and random effect model are estimated along with all relevant diagnostic tests.FindingsEmpirical analysis elucidates that male literacy rate, female literacy rate and gender parity index are important factors in explaining the variation in gender pay gap and women workforce participation at sub-national level in India. Female literacy rate significantly reduces the crude pay gap; however, it has insignificant effect on scale-sensitive gender pay gap in low-skill manufacturing sector. Educational enrolment widens up the crude wage gap but narrows down the other one. In case of workforce participation educational attainment and school enrolment both reduce women workforce participation in low-skill manufacturing job.Research limitations/implicationsThe present research suffers from two major limitations. Due to lack of information, the paper is unable to study the impacts of female representation in trade unions, availability of supporting infrastructure like day-care facilities for working mothers, etc. in explaining the variation in gender pay gap and women workforce participation. The second limitation is that the research fails to address the issue related to selection into employment. The present paper uses the macro-level state-specific statistics instead of micro-level data; hence the imputed wage for unemployed but potential workers cannot be calculated.Originality/valueThe paper is unique in the sense that it highlights gender pay gap and female workforce participation issue in low-skill manufacturing sector at Indian sub-national level. There are no such papers that highlight these issues in the context of Indian manufacturing sector. Another contribution is that the present paper considers the scale-sensitive gender pay gap, whose determinants are different than crude gender pay gap.

A critical legal analysis of gender equality in international trade agreements

Trade can greatly improve women’s lives by creating new job opportunities, increasing consumer choice, and increasing women’s market position in society. If not properly monitored and regulated , it can also lead to unemployment and concentrate the work in low-skilled jobs. Given the complexity and particularity of the relationship between trade and gender, it is important to assess the potential impact of trade policies on men and women and develop appropriate evidence-based strategies to ensure that trade provides power for all. Data are limited and there is a lack of understanding of the relationship between women’s economic roles as workers, consumers, and decision makers and the importance of gender equality in international trade.Hence, in order to understand the importance of gender equality in international trade , as well as to ascertain the role of WTO in ensuring the same and what are the challenges in having a gender inclusive rather a women rights supportive scenario in International trade. Further, this research paper will also analyse the various regional treaty agreements, free trade agreements & Bilateral Investment Treaties and how they have addressed the issue of gender equality or women related provisions while negotiating and drafting the agreements. This paper will also attempt to study how important international conventions like CEDAW & Sustainable Development Goals have also acknowledged the necessity of women economic empowerment in trade affairs.

REFUGEES : A HUMANITARIAN PROGRAM THAT IS BENEFICIAL FOR LONG TERM ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Refugees often portrayed in a negative light. However, Refugees are an asset for the host countries, in particular over longer term. This research explores to what extent refugees contribute an economic benefit for the hosts. In particular, this research’s specific research question is as follows: Do refugees harm or benefit host countries’ local jobs? This research uses a method of literature review. This research reviews the literatures to understand the key questions in the comprehension of host country benefits. It argues that refugees contribute an economic benefit for the receiving countries and do not harm the local jobs of the host countries. The findings in the research are as follows: first, the specific benefits refugees offer for the longer-term economic development of the host countries. Second, most of the refugees work in low-skilled jobs and do not harm local people’s jobs. Conversely, refugees can assist low-skilled local workers lift their skills and work into a higher wage and occupation set. Third, politicians together with the media have the most significant role in shaping the public’s perspective towards refugees. Fourth, the proper approach of integration policy leads to empowerment of refugees. Access to employment is the most significant government input to benefit the national economy. Finally, refugees can be an asset rather than a burden in the longer term. This effect is particularly the case in the second and third generations.

Green economy perspectives in Africa: technological and institutional potential

The article analyses the opportunities and forms of the national and regional ecological policy realization in Africa. Different ways of green technologies implementation in the spheres of climate smart agriculture, electricity provision, eco-industrial parks, blue economy projects are considered. Special attention is paid to targeted agroforestry and electricity programs as well as their practical use in African countries, including new farming and renewable energy methods. The ecological crisis overcoming with the help of green technologies development is accompanied by arising financial and social problems, such as aggravation of unemployment situation, depriving low-skilled workers and jobs. Solving the African problems dealing with green technologies introduction for reaching sustainable development is impossible without intensification of regional economic integration and international partnership.

High SARS-CoV-2 Prevalence among Healthcare Workers in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The aim of the study was to estimate the SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among HCWs in Cochabamba, Bolivia and to determine the potential risk factors. In January 2021, a cross-sectional SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study was conducted in 783 volunteer clinical and non-clinical HCWs in tertiary care facilities. It was based on IgG detection using ELISA, chemiluminiscence, and seroneutralisation tests from dried blood spots. Analysis revealed a high seroprevalence (43.4%) of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies. The combination of anosmia and ageusia (OR: 68.11; 95%-CI 24.83–186.80) was predictive of seropositivity. Belonging to the cleaning staff (OR: 1.94; 95%-CI 1.09–3.45), having more than two children in the same house (OR: 1.74; 95%-CI 1.12–2.71), and having been in contact with a close relative with COVID-19 (OR: 3.53; 95%-CI 2.24–5.58) were identified as risk factors for seropositivity in a multivariate analysis. A total of 47.5% of participants had received medication for COVID-19 treatment or prevention, and only ~50% of symptomatic subjects accessed PCR or antigenic testing. This study confirms a massive SARS-CoV-2 attack rate among HCWs in Cochabamba by the end of January 2021. The main risk factors identified are having a low-skilled job, living with children, and having been in contact with an infected relative in the household.

Shortages, high-demand occupations, and the post-Brexit UK immigration system

Abstract One of the key questions facing immigration policy-makers is which jobs should be eligible for work visas. This question has dominated discussions about the post-Brexit immigration system, which has focused in particular on the issue of shortages. While the UK government resisted calls to open labour migration routes in low-wage or low-skilled jobs with high demand for foreign workers, workers in middle- and high-skilled jobs that are deemed to face a labour market shortage can qualify with significantly lower wages. This paper examines the arguments for and against using immigration policy to prioritize labour migration in ‘shortage occupations’. It argues that the idea is politically appealing but problematic in practice. Shortages are more difficult to measure satisfactorily than policy-makers may imagine, and different methodologies produce different results. This makes it unwise to develop an immigration policy that depends too heavily on the notion that the shortage list is an accurate reflection of what is really happening in the labour market.

Skill Spanning in the Online Labor Market: A Double-Edged Sword?

Freelancers in online labor markets often display many skills in their profiles to increase their chances of being hired. However, such behavior may lead to the skills they display straddling multiple categories, that is, “skill spanning.” In this paper, we extend the concept of category spanning into online labor markets in the form of skill spanning and empirically examine (1) how freelancers’ skill spanning affects employers’ hiring decisions for two different types of jobs (low- and high-skill jobs, respectively), and (2) how freelancers’ skill matching moderates the effects of skill spanning on employers’ hiring decisions. Based on a unique dataset of 12,428 high-skill jobs and 19,875 low-skill jobs on a leading online labor platform, we find that freelancers’ skill spanning has different impacts on employers’ hiring decisions for these two job types. Specifically, for high-skill jobs, freelancers’ skill spanning reduces their likelihood of winning contracts; however, for low-skill jobs, freelancers’ skill spanning and their probabilities of winning contracts demonstrate an inverse U-shape relationship. Furthermore, freelancers’ skill matching can moderate the negative effects of skill spanning for high-skill jobs but not for low-skill jobs. Our findings provide guidelines for different stakeholders in online labor markets, including freelancers and platform owners.

Minimum Wage in a Multi-Tier Search and Wage-Posting Model with Cross-Market Substitutions

While minimum wage policy is widely adopted in the real world, can it effectively raise the average wage of lower paid jobs without having large detrimental consequences for employment? The empirical literature fails to establish robust findings. We develop a general-equilibrium search and wage-posting framework with heterogeneous workers and tasks matching in multi-tier labor markets: abstract, routine high-skilled, routine middle-skilled, manual middle-skilled and manual low-skilled. We incorporate rich cross-market spillovers and compositional effects from individual responses to market thickness. As a result of minimum wage hikes, we show that (i) the unemployment rate at the minimum wage binding market is higher, while all other markets enjoy a lower unemployment rate; (ii) employment in the manual low-skilled jobs is lower, whereas employment in the routine high-skilled and manual middle-skilled markets is higher due to cross-market substitutions; and, (iii) employment in other markets has ambiguous responses due to conflicting effects on potential worker entry and unemployment. By calibrating the model to fit the U.S. data, we evaluate the impacts of the federal minimum wage hike (2007-2009) and the on-going minimum wage increase in Seattle (2017-2021). We find that the minimum wage effects on employment on the binding markets depend crucially on the magnitudes of spillover and compositional effects and that the employment effects may be weak in a nonbinding market. Moreover, our results suggest that, while both minimum wage hikes reduce aggregate output, they only generate small effects on submarket average and overall average wages. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Determinants of Savings in Urban and Rural Households: Case of South Africa

Savings have been described as a significant fi nancial and economic matter and represent an essential driving force of economic growth and development. Despite this, many studies investigating the determinants of savings in South Africa have looked predominantly at the drivers of savings only at a national level, without focusing on urban and rural differences. This is critical as these localities are structurally different, with different characteristics. It is, therefore, likely that the determinants of savings in these unique geographical localities would differ, given the negative impact of past policies of marginalisation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the urban-rural disparities in savings for South African households. We used data sourced from the five waves of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) observed from 2008-2017. The novelty of this study is in its application of a novel two-stage least square estimation technique which addresses possible endogeneity problems which might have plagued previous studies in this field. It was concluded from the research that the determinants of savings are different across samples (urban and rural). We found that having access to land is an important predictor of savings in rural areas where the poor live (positive and significant), but the coefficient is not significant in the urban sample. Although there was a positive correlation between income and savings across samples, but the income impact on savings is higher in absolute values for households residing in rural areas, compared to household living in urban areas. We also found that, despite the coefficient of employment being similar in the direction of the impact (positive and significant) across the samples, the magnitude of the coefficient was stronger in the rural sample. Based on the higher magnitude of the coefficient, we found that household size has more effect in urban than rural areas. The study recommends that government should design and implement policies that foster job creation, even low-skilled jobs, which will generate more income and reduce unemployment.

Do public transit and agglomeration economies collectively enhance low-skilled job accessibility in Portland, OR?

Research related to the spatial mismatch hypothesis has demonstrated that the decentralization of jobs undermines job accessibility for socially and economically disadvantaged groups, especially those dependent on public transit. One potential solution is the promotion of agglomeration economies associated with transit infrastructure which could enhance job accessibility for low-wage or low-skilled workers by centralizing jobs to urban areas with relatively high-density surrounding transit stations. However, the dramatic change in spatial distribution of low-skilled or low-wage workers through Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) could limit jobs available to the underrepresented workers in the urban central area. In this case, agglomeration may not help these workers have better access to matching jobs. To unravel these relationships, this research investigates the effect of agglomeration related to transit's positive externalities on gravity-based job accessibility by transit in Portland, OR. Furthermore, this study compares the agglomeration impact on low-skilled job accessibility to the overall job accessibility. Effective job density is proxy for transit-related agglomeration economies in the analysis. The relationship is estimated with spatial econometric models to evaluate the direct effect as well as the spillover effect of agglomeration. Overall, the agglomeration with benefits from transit network and service brings a positive effect on job accessibility. However, agglomeration economies of one location reduces the job accessibility of their neighbors, implying that concentrating economic activities beyond a certain spatial scale may absorb jobs from the neighboring areas. Policymakers and urban planners should set an upper limit in the spatial scale of TODs to avoid a zero-sum game. The agglomeration effect on job accessibility for low-skilled workers is not as strong as the accessibility for all workers, calling for decision-makers’ attention to the importance of “redistributing” the agglomeration effect through progressive land use and transportation policy efforts for underrepresented workers.

The long-term effect of resource booms on human capital

Resource booms may reduce human capital accumulation. They can increase the opportunity costs of education by favoring low-skilled jobs, thus making it optimal for individuals to interrupt their education. This study uses proprietary individual-level data to study the long-term effects of an oil boom on human capital in a developing country. Exploiting variation in the timing of the shock and geographic differences in the effect of exposure to the boom, I find that exposure to the boom decreased college completion, increased low-skill employment, and had limited long-term effects on wealth accumulation.