Positive Employment Effects Research Articles

Understanding export-generated employment in India

International trade can play a catalytic role in economic development and employment enhancement. To understand the employment impact of India’s pattern of trade, we use a structural decomposition analysis utilising the World Input – Output Database. Distinguishing between final and intermediate exports from India, we quantify the domestic employment effect during 2000–14. We show that a shift in final exports’ composition towards sectors and sub-sectors with lower employment generation potential led to a negative employment effect. However, changes in international production sharing have largely had a positive impact on employment in India. Our structural decomposition analysis is complemented with a panel regression that tracks the employment effect of exports through backward linkages. We find significant differential impacts in India’s bilateral trade with middle-income versus high-income countries. While bilateral backward linkages from exports to middle-income countries enhanced employment in India, exports to high-income countries did not yield a positive employment effect.

The Effects of Employment Status and Daily Routines on Fibromyalgia

Abstract Introduction Fibromyalgia (FM) is a complex and debilitating condition characterised by chronic pain, fatigue, sleep and mood disturbances. This study aimed to investigate the impact of employment status and daily routines on FM symptoms. Methods This cross-sectional study included female FM patients meeting the diagnostic criteria of the American College of Rheumatology. Participants’ employment status, daily routines, FM symptoms, and psychological well-being were assessed using various scales. The relationship between the variables was also examined. Results Of the 74 female FM patients included, those who were employed exhibited better health outcomes, including reduced symptom severity and improved functionality. Engaging in exercise and reading books were associated with less severe FM symptoms. The frequency of going out during lockdown was positively correlated with FM symptom severity. House cleaning was linked to improved emotional well-being, while social media use, watching TV, and household size had no significant impact on the FM burden. Conclusion This study highlights the positive effects of employment, exercise, and reading on FM symptoms and emphasises the importance of a multi-modal approach to FM management. The findings also suggest that external stressors such as the frequency of going out during a pandemic may influence the course of FM. These insights may inform strategies to enhance the quality of life for individuals living with FM.

From Unemployed to Self-Employed: Analysis of Treatment Effects of a Dutch Self-Employment Programme

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a programme that aims to activate welfare recipients to become self-employed. We use unique administrative data which contain applicants for a self-employment programme between 2007 and 2010. We examine the long-term effects of the programme on people’s welfare recipience, employment and income until 8 years after they applied to the programme. The estimations show positive long-term effects of being accepted into the programme. It seems that even applying to the programme and subsequently being rejected also had positive employment effects. This was probably due to the training and guidance the applicants received while writing a business plan, which was a prerequisite to participating in the programme. Moreover, a cost–benefit analysis showed that the programme is cost-effective.

Energy-focused green climate policies and trade nexus:Do heterogeneous effects on clean energy poverty matter?

This study empirically examined the relationship between energy-focused climate policies (EFC) and trade (TR) in 65 of the world's top renewable energy generation countries using data ranging from 1995 to 2022. The cross-sectional augmented distributed lags (CS-DL) results revealed positive effects of EFC on both employment and economic growth. It also proves the positive effects of both employment and economic growth on trade. The Dumitrescu Hurlin test confirmed the feedback causality within indirect effects. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) allowed us to show that employment and economic growth mediate the EFC and TR. All the SEM results were robust due to the positive heterogeneous effects obtained from panel quantile regression. The results also confirmed the presence of heterogeneous effects of EFC and TR on clean energy poverty. Furthermore, the study suggests promoting more incentives, investment, and monitoring in renewable energy resource infrastructure, carbon finance, and energy efficiency to promote trade and reduce clean energy poverty in the long run.

The Impact of e-commerce on Local Retail Employment: Examining Heterogeneous Impacts by Employment and Regional Types

ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact of e-commerce on local retail employment and its heterogeneity by employment and regional types, using Korean retail survey. Our findings reveal that the positive impact of online sales expansion is mainly confined to the growth of wage workers, though its elasticity with respect to online sales is much smaller than that of offline sales. When dividing the full sample by regional type, the positive employment effect of online sales on wage workers is significant only in non-metropolitan regions. In addition, the negative impact of online sales on non-wage workers is found only in metropolitan regions.

The effect of structural reforms on employment and the trade–labour link: Robust evidence from Europe and Central Asia

AbstractWe use Bayesian model averaging techniques to assess the role of different types of structural and institutional variables and their interaction with specific characteristics of the economy, as determinants of employment dynamics for 30 economies in Europe and Central Asia. We find that, once short‐run dynamics are controlled for, common structural determinants for the employment rate emerge, including tax rates, human capital, availability of technology, labour market regulation and trade openness. The results show that the effect of labour market regulation on employment outcomes is affected by other characteristics, such as trade openness. Focusing on the trade–labour link, we find that labour market reforms toward a more flexible labour market have a positive impact on employment ratios, and this effect is stronger for economies characterised by relatively low level of trade barriers. In addition, the positive employment effects from labour market regulation reforms are stronger; the less flexible is the initial labour market regulatory framework. These findings bring important policy insights related to the employment potential of further structural reforms and trade integration for the countries in the region.

Industrial robots, and information and communication technology: the employment effects in EU labour markets

ABSTRACT This paper explores the effects of industrial robots and information and communication technology (ICT) on regional employment in European Union countries. The empirical analysis relies on a harmonised comprehensive regional dataset that combines business statistics and national and regional accounts data. This rich dataset enables us to provide detailed insights into the employment effects of automation and computerisation in EU regions for the period 2001–16. The results suggest relatively weak effects on regional total employment dynamics. However, industrial robots show negative employment effects in local manufacturing industries and positive employment effects in local non-manufacturing industries. While the negative effect is concentrated in particular local manufacturing industries, the positive effect has operated in local service industries. Information technology investments show positive employment effects in local manufacturing industries and some individual local service industries, while communication technology investments are shown to be irrelevant for employment dynamics. In contrast, software and database investments have had a predominantly negative association with local employment.

한국 제조기업의 환경기술 혁신이 고용에 미치는 효과 분석

In this study, we empirically analyze the effect of environmental technology innovation on firms' employment. Using the data on manufacturing sector from the 2016 and the 2018 Korea Innovation Survey, we analyze whether employment growth is different for firms engaged in environmental technology innovation and non-environmental technology innovation. The estimation results suggest that both environmental and non-environmental product innovation have positive effects on employment. Moreover, the employment effect of environmental product innovation is not significantly smaller than that of non-environmental product innovation. In contrast to product innovation, non-environmental process innovation has no employment effect, while environmental process innovation increases employment. The decomposition of total employment growth shows that, despite the positive employment effects of environmental technology innovation, its contribution to total employment growth is small.

The impact of the innovation city project on the local economy: Evidence from Korean Innovation City Project from 2012 to 2014

This study employs a difference-in-differences approach to investigate the impact of the Korean Innovation City Project (KICP) on employment and productivity. KICP is a place-based policy that involved relocating public institutions and providing economic incentives to attract businesses. Our findings show that newly established businesses experienced positive employment effects mainly in the nontradable sector, but temporary negative productivity effects in the tradable sector. We also identified significant positive spillover effects on productivity for incumbent businesses. Moreover, our results suggest that the effectiveness of place-based policies should consider sectoral heterogeneity, between-firm spillover, and lasting effects.

Were jobs saved at the cost of productivity in the COVID-19 crisis?

Economic recessions can boost the productivity-enhancing reallocation of jobs, yet the COVID-19 crisis has provided limited and mixed evidence of that. The paper studies the link between productivity and reallocation and investigates the role of job retention schemes in it, using a rich administrative dataset for Estonia that covers the whole population of firms from 2004 to 2020. We find persistent evidence for the reallocation of jobs towards more productive sectors and firms. However, the within-sector reallocation was surprisingly unresponsive to productivity in the COVID-19 crisis, in sharp contrast to the experience in the previous major crisis, the Great Recession. We show that a generous job retention scheme supressed the acceleration of within-industry reallocation towards more productive firms, which had negative consequences for aggregate productivity during COVID-19. The negative effects on productivity were offset by the positive employment effect, but the net gains from the job retention support appear limited.

Minimum Wage Employment Effects and Labour Market Concentration

Abstract This paper shows that more highly concentrated labour markets experience more positive employment effects of the minimum wage. In the most concentrated labour markets, employment rises following a minimum wage increase. The paper establishes its main findings by studying the effects of local minimum wage increases on a key low-wage retail sector, and using data on labour market concentration that covers the entirety of the U.S. with fine spatial variation at the occupation level. The results carry over to the fast-food sector and the entire low-wage labour market and are robust to using proxies of labour market concentration available for a broader range of industries, such as the number of establishments and population density. A model of oligopsonistic competition can explain these effects: there is more room to increase wages in high-concentration areas where wages tend to be further below marginal productivity. These findings provide evidence supporting monopsonistic wage setting as an explanation for the near-zero minimum wage employment effect documented in prior work.

The role of green technology innovation on employment: does industrial structure optimization and air quality matter?

Although green technology innovation is an important means to balance the environment and economy, few studies have analyzed the employment effects of green technology innovation in developing countries. Therefore, this paper employs the panel data of 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2017 to empirically test the impact of various green technology innovations on urban employment. Meanwhile, from the perspectives of air quality and industrial structure optimization, the influencing mechanism of green technology innovation on employment is deeply analyzed. The results reveal that all kinds of green technology innovation can significantly increase the employment level of the city, and the promotion effect is strongest in the 2nd year after the patent application. According to the results of heterogeneity analysis, key cities of environmental protection and non-resource cities are more likely to generate positive employment effects through green technology innovation. Finally, the mediation effect test model confirms that green technology innovation can promote employment by improving air quality and causing industrial structure optimization.

Family Control, Political Risk and Employment Security: A Cross‐National Study

AbstractCombining insights from the socioemotional wealth and institutional perspectives, we hypothesize that firms controlled by families offer greater job security to employees relative to non‐family firms, and this positive employment effect is amplified in riskier institutional environments around the world. Using an unbalanced panel of 3181 listed firms from 33 countries over a 10‐year period, we provide strong support for our hypotheses: family‐controlled firms on average are less likely to reduce their workforce compared to their non‐family counterparts, and this differential effect is magnified in weak institutional environments characterized by high political risk. These findings indicate that socioemotional wealth in family firms has a positive impact on employee welfare and that the use of a cross‐country design serves to bridge discrepancies or inconsistencies in single country studies that have been done in the past. From a practical perspective we conclude that the beneficial role of socioemotional wealth on employment relations is more evident when it is needed the most, namely under a dysfunctional institutional environment.

Working less for more? A systematic review of the social, economic, and ecological effects of working time reduction policies in the global North

The increasingly studied effects of working time reductions (WTR) on social, economic, and ecological sustainability depend on how these reductions are conceptualized in terms of implementation level, form, extent and accompanying wage compensation. Very little research on WTRs considers more than one sustainability dimension or explores different conceptualizations of WTRs. We thus seek in this article to differentiate the effects of diverse conceptualizations of WTR policies within and across all three sustainability dimensions by conducting a systematic review of longitudinal and (quasi-)experimental research on the ecological, social, and economic effects of WTRs. The studies we reviewed on social sustainability (n = 18) suggest that WTRs have generally well-substantiated positive effects on well-being, health, and work-family conflict. Regarding economic effects (n = 14), however, the findings are mixed: WTRs appear to have small, positive employment effects and unclear productivity effects, on one hand, as well as negative career-trajectory effects, on the other. The only study reviewed concerning ecological sustainability suggests that WTRs have a positive effect on the environment. Research on different conceptualizations of WTRs is scarce but suggests that WTRs might be most beneficial when implemented with a substantial reduction in working hours, on the national or organizational level, in the form of fewer rather than shorter working days, and accompanied by progressive wage compensation. Based on these findings, we also outline a research agenda to address the knowledge gaps in this important field of study.

Equalizing or not? Public childcare and women’s labour market participation

Within the scientific literature and debate on social investment, public childcare provision plays a pivotal role. At the same time, critics have argued that social investment is often unable to reduce social inequalities and, to the contrary, tends to reproduce them (the so-called ‘Matthew effect’). The article focuses on a specific facet of social investment policies: their capacity to support mothers’ employment and its effect on social inequality, by investigating empirically to what extent an expansion of public childcare can help to increase women’s labour market participation and how this eventual support is homogenously distributed among different mothers’ profiles. To give a convincing answer to such a question requires careful attention to methodology, in order to avoid drawing the wrong conclusions. Whereas existing research has predominately focused on cross-national variation and has often been static in nature, the present study assesses the effects of public childcare expansion on women’s labour market participation and employment by examining region-specific within-variation over time of public childcare coverage. The study relies on data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) that were integrated with an original collection of regional-level information on public childcare. It finds a positive association between increases in public childcare coverage and mothers’ labour market participation. Furthermore, it shows that public childcare helps to fight social inequalities among households with young children. Low-educated mothers are the ones who profit most from an increase in public childcare, and positive employment effects are most pronounced at lower levels of childcare coverage. Therefore, this contribution highlights the importance of public childcare policies as an equalizer in society, especially in contexts in which an intervention is most needed, because expanding childcare fosters mothers’ labour market participation

A research and development investment strategy to achieve the Paris climate agreement

Climate stabilization requires the deployment of several low-carbon options, some of which are still not available at large scale or are too costly. Governments will have to make important decisions on how to incentivize Research and Development (R&D). Yet, current assessments of climate neutrality typically do not include research-driven innovation. Here, we link two integrated assessment models to study R&D investment pathways consistent with climate stabilization and suggest a consistent financing scheme. We focus on five low-carbon technologies and on energy efficiency measures. We find that timely R&D investment in these technologies lowers mitigation costs and induces positive employment effects. Achieving 2 °C (1.5 °C) requires a global 18% (64%) increase in cumulative low-carbon R&D investment relative to the reference scenario by mid-century. We show that carbon revenues are sufficient to both finance the additional R&D investment requirements and generate economic benefits by reducing distortionary taxation, such as payroll taxes, thus enhancing job creation.

Job creation and destruction in the digital age: Assessing heterogeneous effects across European Union countries

Do investments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) create jobs? The literature suggests that, even if innovations are labour saving, there may be compensating mechanisms that lead to a positive employment effect. We investigate this issue using country-level data for the European Union from 1995 to 2019. The results suggest an average positive net effect of ICT investment on total employment. An increase of €100,000 in the ICT investment stock is associated with an average increase of 3.3 jobs in the European Union. However, the magnitude of the impact is heterogeneous across countries. The differences are explained by the country-specific characteristics of ICT investment (non-machine versus machine-based) and the existing skill endowment of the labour force. Moreover, the rate of return on investment expressed in terms of net job creation tends to decline over time, as the share of high-skilled workers in the market increases.

Part-time versus full-time employment and mental health for people with and without disability

ObjectivesThis paper investigates the relationship between part-time and full-time employment and mental health for people with and without disability, as well as differences in the relationship by age and sex. MethodsUsing data from 13,219 working-aged people (15–64 years) in the labour force who participated in five annual waves of a longitudinal cohort study in Australia, the analysis used fixed effect regression models to examine within-person changes in mental health associated with changes in employment status (full-time; part-time; unemployed). Differences in the relationship between employment status and mental health by disability, sex, and age were assessed. ResultsAmong people with disability, there was evidence that working part-time and full-time were associated with a 4.2-point (95% CI 2.6, 5.7) and 6.0-point (95% CI 4.4, 7.6) increase in mental health scores compared with when they were unemployed. For people without disability, there were much smaller differences in mental health associated with working part-time (β = 1.0, 95% CI 0.2, 1.9) and full-time (β = 1.4, 95% CI 0.5, 2.2) compared with when they were unemployed. The positive effects of both part-time and full-time employment were of greater magnitude for people with disability aged younger than 45 years compared to those aged 45 years and older. ConclusionsThe results of this study suggest that both part-time and full-time employment may have beneficial effects on the mental health of people with disability, particularly for younger people. The findings underscore the value of employment for people with disability, given we found much larger beneficial mental health effects in comparison to people without disability.

Evaluation of a Flemish Active Labour Market Policy in the framework of the European Social Fund. Results and challenges

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the “Work Experience for Young Persons” (WIJ) programme, which was implemented in Flanders between 2015 and 2018. The WIJ programme is partially financed through the European Social Fund (ESF) and targets unqualified, young, and unemployed people with the aim of facilitating their entry to the labour market. The programme involves a trajectory of intensive guidance that includes labour market orientation and coaching as first phase, plus competence strengthening activities as second phase. This analysis is based on the Flemish Public Employment Service’s administrative data sources, which allows us to exploit detailed information on previous labour market history. We apply Coarsened Exact Matching to evaluate the WIJ’s impact on young unemployed people specifically in terms of their probability of being employed, unemployed or inactive, and of re-entering into education. Our results suggest that those who have participated in the WIJ programme have lower employment and education probabilities with respect to those who participated in the standard activities proposed by the public employment service. However, we found a positive employment effect if we only consider those who participated in the standard trajectory, i.e. those whose WIJ intervention lasted fewer than 14 months; this means that the negative effects are driven by those young individuals following the extended trajectories.

Labor market changes and social inclusiveness across regions: evidence from the rise of the modern office

Could complex changes in the labor market reduce social inequalities across regions? We study the rise of office employment in the early twentieth century that was induced by innovations in office technology and organizational changes affecting the type of required office tasks. The new office jobs required little physical strength. We find that the regional employment share of industries that were strongly connected to the modern office, is positively linked to labor force participation of people with physical impairments. The positive employment effect is more visible for disabled men. In sum, the rise of the modern office that differed across regions started to lower labor market entry barriers and fostered social inclusiveness.