Search results for "Employment"
showing 10 items of 704 documents
Latvian Migrants in Foreign Labour Markets: Job Placement and Discrimination
2019
AbstractThe majority of migrants from Latvia move abroad intending to work, and so fall into the category of ‘work migrants’. A crucial role in their job placement is played by an increasingly complex network of intermediaries. This includes formal employment agencies, more informal, social network-based mediators and even illegal service providers. Despite the agencies providing job placements abroad being subject to regulations, fraud and the mistreatment of jobseekers has emerged as a cause for concern. Even when there is no ill will from the intermediaries, immigrant workers often suffer discrimination from their employers, sometimes leading to a re-evaluation of their return migration …
Higher Education as Modulator of Gender Inequalities: Evidence of the Spanish Case
2015
Raising educational levels may help to reduce inequalities between men and women in certain social and economic aspects. Using statistics for Spain, we analyse labour market behaviours such as the rates of activity and unemployment by sex according to the educational level. The results reveal that the differences between men and women decrease as the educational level increases. In particular, the modulator effect of education is very important at the higher level, where differences in labour market behaviour between men and women with an university education almost disappear, except in terms of salaries. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the current economic crisis has reduced the modulato…
Public Employees as Politicians: Evidence from Close Elections
2017
We analyze the effect of municipal employees’ political representation in municipal councils on local public spending. We use within-party, as-good-as-random variation in close elections in the Finnish open-list proportional election system to quantify the effect. One more councilor employed by the public sector increases spending by about 1%. The effect comes largely through the largest party and is specific to the employment sector of the municipal employee. The results are consistent with public employees having an information advantage over other politicians, and thus, being able to influence policy.
The Nordic expericence revisited: labour market booms and slumps since the 1990s in Finland and Sweden
2011
PurposeThis paper aims to provide an account of the unemployment performance of two Nordic countries during their recent labour market booms and slumps.Design/methodology/approachBased on the empirical models of Karanassou et al., we conduct dynamic simulation exercises and explore the determinants of unemployment.FindingsThe analysis yields two main findings. First, the capital stock was the most important determinant of the unemployment trajectory in both countries. This result appears in all periods considered: in the slump of the early 1990s and the boom of the late 1990s, as well as in the stabilisation period of the early 2000s. Second, the role of the foreign sector on the unemployme…
The Workers' Value of the Remaining Employment Contract Duration
2005
This paper introduces and applies a method for estimating workers' marginal willingness to pay for job attributes employing data on job search activity. Workers' willingness to pay for the remaining duration of the employment contract is derived. We provide evidence that workers attach substantial value to the remaining contract duration. A temporary worker with a remaining contract of 6 months is willing to pay about 10% of the wage to increase the contract by one month.
The Intensification of Work
2018
Work intensity has become an increasingly vital concept in understanding current changes in the employment sector, and why these changes have detrimental implications for the well-being of employees and their families. Objective measures, such as allocation or length of work hours, do not necessarily catch the tempo of work during the time spent at work. Nor are the hours an appropriate indicator of the level of mental effort and strain in and even outside of (official) work (hours). This chapter discusses the various change processes in the economy and work life that have led to the intensification of work. The chapter’s aim is also to describe how these change processes pose varying chall…
Unemployment and the Earnings Structure in Latvia
2005
Latvia has recorded sustained GDP and productivity growth since 1997. Yet unemployment rates, despite gradual decrease, have remained high. The paper explores the mysteries of unemployment in Latvia. It analyzes labor flows between employment, unemployment, and nonparticipation and finds the following results: The type of education and the region of residence appear to be the most important determinants of success in finding jobs by the unemployed. The unemployed from ethnic minorities have lower chances to find a job within a year, other things equal, while the difference between genders is not significant. However, neither ethnicity nor gender seems to matter as far as the transition from…
Youth Unemployment in Romania: Post-crisis Challenges
2014
Abstract This article reviews the dynamics of the Romanian youth labour market between 2007 and 2013. Using total unemployment rate as benchmarking we describe the dynamics of youth unemployment during these years. We argue that the short time effects of the crisis on youth unemployment are just one side of the problem. The long term effects related to education and migration trends are the main challenges that labour market policies should address in the near future.
Unemployment Transitions to Stable and Unstable Jobs Before and During the Crisis
2014
Using administrative records data from Spanish Social Security, we analyse the pattern and the determinants of individual unemployment benefit spell durations. We compare a period of expansion (2005-2007) and the recent recession (2009-2011), allowing us to determine the impact of the current crisis. In line with the duality that characterizes the Spanish labour market, we distinguish between exits to a stable job and exits to an unstable job. We estimate a Multivariate Mixed Proportional Hazard Model for each time period. We find similar effects of the crisis for stable and unstable jobs, which are particularly strong in the first year of the spell. Moreover, slight negative duration depen…
Rethinking Labour Migration Channels: the Experience of Latvia from EU Accession to Economic Recession
2013
With the onset of recession in the UK in 2008, it was assumed that immigration from other European Union countries would decline. However, this has been shown to not be the case, with the volume of new arrivals from most of the East-Central European ‘Accession 8’ countries actually increasing. The focus of this paper is Latvia, a country that had a relatively buoyant economy following its accession to the European Union in 2004 but that now has one of the highest unemployment and emigration rates in Europe. Interviews carried out with labour providers, policymakers, and employers are used to examine the labour migration channels that reflect and structure labour migration flows from Latvia …