Regular Labour Market Research Articles

Deux structures d’insertion professionnelle de format hybride pour personnes avec un trouble mental : les ESAT de transition de Messidor (France) et Accès-Cible SMT (Québec)

Many different types of vocational programs (services) exist to help people with severe mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) integrate the regular labor market: sheltered workshops, social enterprises, and supported employment programs to name a few. Each type of vocational services has its specificities: on one hand, some of them are following the "train and place" approach. For example, sheltered workshops offer to people with a severe mental illness a training during a long period of, with a small proportion obtaining competitive employment. On the other hand, other programs adopt the "place and train" philosophy, such as supported employment programs, in which employment specialists help people obtain a competitive job as fast as possible with no requested training. This article presents two original vocational services, the Messidor's sheltered workshops in France and the Accès-Cible SMT supported employment program in Quebec, following an "hybrid" approach including both philosophies "place and train" and "train and place". More particularly, they are both aiming at competitive employment on the regular labor market for people with a severe mental illness, with a different length of training. Messidor consists of a sheltered workplace for people with a severe mental illness in France, using this time of transition in the workshops as a tool to obtain a competitive job. Thanks to three key factors, Messidor succeeds in placing many of their workers in the French regular labor market: (1) Workers with severe mental disorders work on tasks and workplaces similar to those in regular labor market; (2) Messidor's managers have small teams (5-7 persons) that offer a nearby and personalized management to workers; (3) Each worker is followed by a Messidor's employment counsellor, to build together a working plan and put in place work strategies to obtain a competitive job. This "double management" seems to be a key ingredient of this support as it promotes some success in getting a job as well as in developing some recovery effects. Accès-Cible SMT located in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) is also an interesting "hybrid" program since people with severe mental disorders can be supported by a counsellor, with a short period of training (a 28-week program with 6 steps) before integrating the regular labor market. The philosophy of Accès-Cible SMT is to consider their clients as normal persons more than as patients, and its objective is mainly to restore confidence and self-esteem of the person by putting emphasis on their professional skills. Meetings in groups, practicums in the workplace, and the utilization of job search strategies are essential ingredients of Accès-Cible SMT, which are also efficient tools to develop a better empowerment of the person. Indeed, the common ingredients/elements of these two vocational services, Messidor and Accès-Cible SMT, seem to be the development of empowerment for people with severe mental disorders. The scientific literature supports that empowerment is one of the key factors of recovery for people with a mental illness, a recovery process that can be illustrated by their work integration in the regular labor market as a final goal.

Compulsory School Is Over and Now? Vocational Experiences of Women with Intellectual Disability

This contribution explores the question of the vocational experiences which women with intellectual disabilities have after leaving school. The main part of the contribution contains an analysis of three interviews with women with intellectual disabilities about their post-school vocational orientation. The research method applied for the analysis was grounded theory. The results show that the three women changed from school directly to a sheltered workshop/occupational therapy or to external vocational preparation measures. They were only able to gain work experience on the regular labour market in the framework of work placement, which led them to express their wish to find employment on the regular labour market. They were successful in their pursuit of vocational participation on the regular labour market. However, they perceive the transition from school to the regular labour market as a cumbersome vocational orientation process.

The Impacts of Vocational Rehabilitation

Based on local variations in vocational rehabilitation (VR) priorities, we examine the impacts of alternative VR programs on short- and long-term labor market outcomes for temporary disability insurance (TDI) claimants in Norway. The analysis builds on rich and detailed administrative registers covering 345,000 claimants. We find that a strategy focusing on rapid placement in the regular labor market is superior to alternative strategies giving higher priority to vocational training or sheltered employment. Strategies prioritizing subsidized regular education also tend to be relatively successful in terms of final outcomes, but at the cost of protracted periods of benefit dependency first.

Supported employment in Argentina

Argentina finds itself in a positive position to strongly develop supported employment, given the growing concern of the different stakeholders involved in favor of inclusion of people with disabilities in the regular labor market. The government of Argentina decided to develop and reactivate policies to promote labor inclusion of this population. The business sector and organizations are beginning to regard supported employment as a system of labor inclusion in the competitive job market for people with disabilities. There are challenges ahead to ensure full citizenship of people with disabilities, in which the inclusion in the open labor market plays an essential role, and supported employment is emerging to take up these challenges.

Optimal Policy and the Role of Social Contacts in a Search Model with Heterogeneous Workers

This paper develops a search model with heterogeneous workers and social networks. High ability workers are more productive and have a larger number of professional contacts. Firms have a choice between a high cost vacancy in the regular labour market and a low cost job opening in the referral market. In this setting the model predicts that a larger number of social contacts is associated with a larger wage gap between high and low ability workers and a larger difference in the equilibrium unemployment rates. Next we demonstrate that the decentralized equilibrium is inefficient for any value of the bargaining power. There are two reasons for the inefficiency. First, the private gain from creating a job in the referral market is always below the social gain, so the equilibrium unemployment of high ability workers is above its optimal value. Moreover, high ability workers congest the market for low ability workers, so the equilibrium wage inequality is inefficiently large. This is in contrast to the result of Blazquez and Jansen (2008) showing that the distribution of wages is compressed in a search model with heterogeneous workers. Finally, we show that a combination of taxes and subsidies can restore the optimal allocation.

Are temporary work agencies stepping stones into regular employment?

Abstract This paper estimates the causal effect of temporary work agency (TWA) employment on the subsequent probability of employment in the regular labor market. The main purpose is to estimate the stepping-stone effect separately for natives and immigrants, where the latter group potentially benefits the most from TWA employment. Since no quasi-experiment is available, individual Differences-in-Differences and matching is used to deal with the potential selection bias. The results point at a negative regular employment effect, which slowly fades away over a couple of years. Thus no evidence of a stepping-stone effect is found. When conditioning on immigrants, this negative effect is absent. A long-run significant effect is found on overall employment probability (including TWA employment), there is even a long-run positive effect on annual earnings (mainly driven by women). Unemployment probabilities decreased, however the results in the estimation were less stable over time compared to the employment estimates, suggesting that the TWAs might keep individuals from exiting the labor market.

Optimal Policy and the Role of Social Contacts in a Search Model with Heterogeneous Workers

This paper develops a search model with heterogeneous workers and social networks. High ability workers are more productive and have a larger number of professional contacts. Firms have a choice between a high cost vacancy in the regular labour market and a low cost job opening in the referral market. In this setting the model predicts that a larger number of social contacts is associated with a larger wage gap between high and low ability workers and a larger difference in the equilibrium unemployment rates. Next we demonstrate that the decentralized equilibrium is inefficient for any value of the bargaining power. There are two reasons for the inefficiency. First, the private gain from creating a job in the referral market is always below the social gain, so the equilibrium unemployment of high ability workers is above its optimal value. Moreover, high ability workers congest the market for low ability workers, so the equilibrium wage inequality is inefficiently large. This is in contrast to the result of Blazquez and Jansen (2008) showing that the distribution of wages is compressed in a search model with heterogeneous workers. Finally, we show that a combination of taxes and subsidies can restore the optimal allocation.

Determinants of Household Demand for Services - Formal Versus Informal Sector

This paper addresses the issue of household demand for services in Poland when informal sector is taken into consideration. The aim of the study is threefold: (i) to investigate the factors influencing households expenses for services, (ii) to find the determinants of households’ tax strategy (choice between acquiring services on regular labour market or not), (iii) to investigate the differences between the factors that influence the expenses for formal versus informal services. Two-step Heckman selection model is used to account for the selection into buying household services. Lee’s (1983) procedure is adopted to control for the selection into the particular choice of tax strategy when purchasing household services. The decision whether to buy household services and whether formally or informally is modelled as a sequential choice and estimated by bivariate probit with selection. An important novel feature of the model used is the inclusion of variables that capture social norms and personal attitudes toward tax evasion. The study concludes that factors influencing expenses for services are positively related to financial situation of households, education and age of household head. The probability of avoiding taxes is higher for lower income households, households with more than one member and for those where a positive attitude toward informal employment is expressed. The impact of determinants of expenses for formal and informal services separately is comparable. Only household structure has the opposite effect on expenses for formal services versus informal ones.

Presumed Incapable

Research has shown that managers in the hotel industry perceive persons with disabilities as people who lack the required innate capacities and attributes, are unable to meet industry-specific work requirements, and are too costly to employ. A case study of hotels within the German Embrace hotel association finds little support for those negative judgments. Based on interviews with forty-nine managers, employees, and guests with and without disabilities as well as nine days of observations, the study found that employees with disabilities are loyal, are reliable, and, on balance, require moderate accommodations. On average, more than 60 percent of Embrace hotel employees are persons with disabilities. Embrace’s employment concept is based on the integrative model, which aims to create employment opportunities for persons with disabilities who do not find employment in the regular labor market. Many disabilities had no effect on the mobility or shift work of employees. The processes of accommodating and training persons with disabilities were frequently associated with minimal costs, and expenses incurred for some accommodations were offset by German government grants. Moreover, the physical attributes of persons with disabilities did not negatively influence the experiences of guests. The findings indicate that developing an organizational climate of openness and tolerance, placing employees with disabilities at the center of managerial planning and operational processes, and investing in good human resources management practices are essential elements for the integration of persons with disabilities in the workplace.

Labor market policy: A comparative view on the costs and benefits of labor market flexibility

AbstractI review theories and evidence on wage‐setting institutions and labor market policies in an international comparative context. These include collective bargaining, minimum wages, employment protection laws, unemployment insurance (UI), mandated parental leave, and active labor market policies (ALMPs). Since it is unlikely that an unregulated private sector would provide the income insurance these institutions do, these policies may enhance economic efficiency. However, to the extent that unemployment or resource misallocation results from such measures, these efficiency gains may be offset. Overall, Scandinavia and Central Europe follow distinctively more interventionist policies than the English‐speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Possible explanations for such differences include vulnerability to external market forces and ethnic homogeneity. I then review evidence on the impacts of these policies and institutions. While the interventionist model appears to cause lower levels of wage inequality and high levels of job security to incumbent workers, it also in some cases leads to the relegation of new entrants (disproportionately women, youth, and immigrants) as well as the less skilled to temporary jobs or unemployment. Making labor markets more flexible could bring these groups into the regular labor market to a greater extent, at the expense of higher levels of economic insecurity for incumbents and higher levels of wage inequality. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Gender equality policies and higher education careers

Gender equality policies regulate the Swedish labour market, including higher education. This study analyses and discusses the career development of postgraduate students in the light of labour market influences. The principle of gender separation is used to understand these effects. Swedish register data encompassing information on 585 postgraduate students born in 1948, 1953 and 1967 were analysed. Since higher education and the labour market are horizontally gender‐divided, career options are different for men and women. Men, both those who did and did not obtain a postgraduate degree, were more likely to work within the private sector, compared to women who were more likely to complete their degrees and more likely to work within the public sector. In other words, whilst women more often remain within higher education, men, probably due to their academic specialisation, are in greater demand on the regular labour market, meaning that studies, to a greater extent, can remain incomplete. Until the 1960s higher education was very selective, where participation by women and individuals with less well‐educated family backgrounds was rare. After the expansion of higher education, both the student and faculty bodies have become increasingly diversified. However, new demarcations have emerged; between those who receive research funding and those who do not, and between those who work within higher education and those who leave for other, competing options outside.

Working plans of people with mental disorders employed in Italian social enterprises.

Social Enterprises (SEn) are innovative companies that help disadvantaged people (e.g., individuals with mental disorders) with the work integration process. This study explores the working plan patterns of people with mental disorders employed in SEn. A cross-sectional design was adopted. One hundred and forty individuals with mental disorders employed in 19 Italian SEn filled out a battery of questionnaires. We identified three patterns of working plans: Cluster 1 (n = 39, 30%) showed a stronger intention to work in a competitive labor market; Cluster 2 (n = 16, 12.3%) showed a stronger intention to stop working; Cluster 3 (n = 75, 57.7%) showed a stronger intention to continue working at a SEn. Most of the sample had a pattern of intentions to keep working, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the SEn approach to work integration. Future studies should explore the approach further. Indeed, these results seem important for implications for practice, suggesting that people with mental disorders inside SEn can improve their level of interpersonal skills and reinforce their vocational identity, and ultimately increase their chances of employment in the regular labor market.

What works best when? The role of active labour market policy programmes in different business cycles

Nordlund M. What works best when? The role of active labour market policy programmes in different business cyclesInt J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 43–54 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.At what point in a business cycle do long‐term unemployed persons gain most from participation in active labour market policy programmes (ALMP) as compared with openly unemployed persons? This article studies this question from the perspective of individual human capital with the hazard of labour market exit and chances of future labour market stability and equal post‐unemployment income as output variables. All the long‐term unemployed in Sweden were followed on a four‐year basis, with 1993 (recession) and 1999 (boom) as starting years. The study shows mainly positive effects among participants regardless of the state of the market. However, ALMP training has a ‘bridging’ effect over different labour market conditions, and a quick return to the regular labour market is, therefore, not as important for the success of participation as it is among ALMP employment participants.

Work out or out of work — The labor market return to physical fitness and leisure sports activities

This study is the first to present evidence of the return to leisure sports in the job hiring process by sending fictitious applications to real job openings in the Swedish labor market. In the field experiment job applicants were randomly given different information about their type and level of leisure sports. Applicants who signaled sports skills had a significantly higher callback rate of about 2 percentage points, and this effect was about twice as large for physically demanding occupations. Additional evidence of a sports premium in the regular labor market is arrived at when analyzing the long-run impact of physical fitness on later labor market outcomes. The analysis uses register data on adult earnings and physical fitness when enlisting at age 18. The fitness premium, net of unobservable family variables, is in the order of 4–5%, but diminishes to 2% when controlling for non-cognitive skills.

Is Social Security Secure with NDC?

The introduction of NDC public pension scheme in few European countries, such as Latvia, Sweden, Italy, and Poland, in the nineties was motivated, among other things, by the need (i) to ensure the long term financial sustainability of the public pension system by linking pension returns to economic growth; (ii) to reduce the existing distortions in the labor market, due to the existing strong incentives to retire early, (iii) to increase the intergenerational equity of the system, jeopardized by the different returns across generations; and (iv) to reduce the systematic political interference with public pension systems under aging through the introduction of a sequence of automatic adjustments in the system that do not require government intervention. After more than ten years from their introduction, these systems have performed reasonably well on these accounts. However, some degree of political involvement with the working of the pension systems has continued (f.e., in Italy), and new concerns have emerged. In particular, the combination of a pension system, which strongly bases the benefit calculation on previous contributions (and on thus labor market status), and the existence in some countries of a dual labor market, with young workers being held on the margin of the regular labor market for many years, create a new, potentially strong challenge to these systems. Our simulations of the future pension benefits for the current generation of young workers with a discontinuous working history in Italy and Sweden suggest that the replacement rates will be low, unless the retirement age is significantly increased. This effect may end up jeopardizing the political sustainability of these NDC systems in the future, unless important labor market reforms are introduced. We discuss the effects on the future generation of retirees in Italy and Sweden of a current labor market reform: the introduction of a unique labor market contract, aimed at reducing the dualism between temporary and permanent workers.

Introduction

Introduction

Active labour market policy in East Germany

AbstractWe investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database derived from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that over a horizon of 2.5 years after the start of the programmes, they fail to increase the employment chances of their participants in the regular labour market. However, the programmes may have other effects for their participants that may be considered important in the especially difficult situation experienced in the East German labour market.

Zimbabweans in Britain: Transnational Activities and Capabilities

This paper explores the economic, political, social and cultural transnational exchanges of 500 Zimbabweans living in the UK. The paper examines the ways in which motivations for migration and immigration status impact on the type of transnational exchanges that take place between the UK and Zimbabwe, and also among diasporic networks elsewhere. After social contact with close family members, economic remittances form the most regular exchanges. The paper shows the ways in which remittance activities are affected by the structural exclusions, due to government policy, experienced by asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants who are prohibited from working in the regular labour market. However, it also clearly demonstrates that, with the exception of more political activity among those who left Zimbabwe for political reasons, motivations for migration have little impact on the nature of transnational exchanges among Zimbabweans in the UK.

Work integration of people with disabilities in the regular labour market: What can we do to improve these processes?

Background It is important to ensure that regular processes of labour market integration are available for all citizens.Method Thematic content analysis techniques, using semi‐structured group interviews, were used to identify the principal elements contributing to the processes of integrating people with disabilities into the regular labour market. Thirty‐two professionals from 17 agencies provided information regarding the role of the family, training, workplace monitoring, the work setting, and personal resources of the worker.Results The results indicated that family, training (prior to and during the integration service), monitoring of the worker in the workplace, and work setting were relevant and contributing aspects of the process of work integration.Conclusions A real and effective commitment on the part of the government is required to regulate and provide resources to create supported employment services and to allow these services to plan their own interventions, keeping in mind the relevance of and relationship between aspects such as family, training, workplace monitoring, the work setting and personal resources of the worker.

Active Labour Market Policy in East Germany: Waiting for the Economy to Take Off

We investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database coming from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that over a horizon of 2.5 years after programme start the programmes fail to increase the employment chances of their participants in the regular labour market. However, the programmes may have other effects for their participants that may be considered important in the especially difficult situation experienced in the East German labour market.