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Skilled Workers (skilled + worker)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	67%
Humanities and Social Sciences	25%

Selected Abstracts

OUTSOURCING TYPES, RELATIVE WAGES, AND THE DEMAND FOR SKILLED WORKERS: NEW EVIDENCE FROM U.S. MANUFACTURING

ECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 1 2009
AEKAPOL CHONGVILAIVAN
Existing studies on the impact of outsourcing on relative wages and the demand for skilled workers mainly focus on aggregate outsourcing, in which imported intermediate inputs are used as a proxy. We depart from the existing studies by focusing on various types of outsourcing based on the six-digit NAICS U.S. manufacturing data. We show that downstream materials and service outsourcing are skill biased, whereas upstream materials outsourcing is not. We also produce other supplementary results pertaining to the impact of technology, different capital inputs on relative wages, and the demand for skilled workers. (JEL C33, F14, F15) [source]

International Trade and the Changing Demand for Skilled Workers in High-Tech Manufacturing

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2008
JULIE A. SILVA
ABSTRACT States and localities in the U.S. put considerable effort into attracting and maintaining high-tech manufacturing industries to preserve manufacturing employment. However, little work has examined whether high-tech industries respond differently than traditional manufacturing to changing trade pressures. This study investigates the impact of international trade on skilled and unskilled labor demand across manufacturing sectors. Results of this study indicate that changes in exchange rates and trade orientation have similar effects across high-tech and traditional manufacturing sectors. In addition, findings suggest that there is a high degree of variation in the trade-related effects on labor demand across individual high-tech sectors, and that the direction of these effects often runs counter to the predictions of traditional trade theory. [source]

Evaluation of a Program on Systematic Self-Monitoring and Reflection of Health Behavior in Organisations: Results of Two Randomised Controlled Studies on Well-Being and Absenteeism of Employees and Skilled Workers

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: HEALTH AND WELL-BEING, Issue 1 2010
Günter Krampen
Effects of a group health promotion program on well-being and absenteeism of employees and skilled workers were tested. The objectives of the program are systematic self-monitoring and reflection on everyday life health behavior as well as the promotion of health- and development-related cognitions and well-being. Randomised group designs were employed to evaluate the program's effects on well-being, psychosomatic complaints, personal regulation of own development, and absenteeism. Program effects were confirmed with reference to these outcome measures administered at the end of the 8-week treatment and at 2-month follow-up in samples of 56 public employees (Study 1) and 39 skilled workers (Study 2). Results demonstrate the effectiveness and usability of the SySeRe program as an economical individual-level health promotion intervention in occupational health psychology with large effect sizes in psychometric measures of well-being and in the reduction of employee sick leave as well. [source]

Are migrants more skilled than non-migrants?

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2004
Repeat, return, same-employer migrants
Migrants who do not change employers represent one-fifth of all migrants and have higher education and pre-move wages than non-migrants. Skilled workers thus have a low-cost migration avenue that has not been considered in the previous literature. Other migrants are heterogeneous and not unambiguously more skilled than non-migrants. I confirm that long-distance migrants are more skilled than short-distance migrants, as predicted by theory, and I show that return migrants are a mix of successes and failures. Most repeat migration is return migration. JEL classification: J6 Est-ce que les migrants sont plus qualifiés que les non-migrants? Le cas des migrants à répétition, des migrants qui reviennent à leur zone de départ, et des migrants qui restent au service des mêmes employeurs., L'auteur examine les déterminants de la migration des adultes entre les états en Allemagne de l'Ouest à l'aide des données du panel socio-économique allemand (1984,2000). Les migrants qui ne changent pas d'employeurs représentent le cinquième de tous les migrants, et ont des niveaux d'éducation et de salaires plus élevés avant leur déplacement que les non-migrants. Les travailleurs qualifiés ont donc une avenue de migration à faibles coûts à leur disposition que la littérature spécialisée n'a pas examinée. Les autres migrants sont hétérogènes et ne sont pas clairement plus qualifiés que les non-migrants. Les migrants vers des destinations éloignées sont plus qualifiés que ceux qui se déplacent sur de courtes distances, comme le suggère la théorie. On montre que les migrants qui reviennent à leur zone de départ sont un mélange de succès et d'échecs. [source]

INDUSTRIAL DYNAMICS AND THE NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODEL

ECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 4 2009
WILLIAM F. BLANKENAU
This paper studies industry-level dynamics and demonstrates the ability of a modified neoclassical growth model to capture a range of empirical facts. The paper begins by using U.S. data to document skilled and unskilled labor trends within industry sector classifications as well as industry sector output trends. Using Current Population Survey data from 1968 to 2004, it is shown that the ratio of skilled workers to unskilled workers employed has risen in all industries. The absolute increase in this ratio was larger in the more skilled industries, while the growth rate was larger in the less skilled industries. Furthermore, using national income account data, it is shown that relatively high-skilled industries have accounted for an increasing share of output over time. A version of the neoclassical growth model is then constructed to match these observations. One important feature of this model is a structure that introduces new goods into the economy at each moment of time. The model is able to capture a rich set of labor market movements between sectors and between skill levels as well as changes in the relative output shares across industries, yet preserves many nice features of the neoclassical growth model.(JEL E13, J20, 030) [source]

OUTSOURCING TYPES, RELATIVE WAGES, AND THE DEMAND FOR SKILLED WORKERS: NEW EVIDENCE FROM U.S. MANUFACTURING

Capital deepening and wage differentials: Germany versus US

ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 49 2007
Winfried Koeniger
SUMMARY Wage inequality, investment and skills In flexible labour markets, capital increases the productivity of skilled workers more than that of unskilled workers, and in the US faster investment is associated with wider wage inequality. But labour market institutions that keep unskilled workers' wages high also imply that firms may find it profitable to invest so as to boost those workers' productivity. Our empirical analysis based on industry-level data confirms that a higher capital intensity in Germany is associated with smaller wage differentials and with a larger share of unskilled workers in the labour costs. Changes in capital,labour ratios during the 1980s reduced wage differentials by 5,8% in German industries, while in the US capital deepening in such industries as machinery and retail was accompanied by an increase of wage differentials larger than 7%. , Winfried Koeniger and Marco Leonardi [source]

Unemployment and Search Externalities in a Model with Heterogeneous Jobs and Workers

ECONOMICA, Issue 273 2002
Pieter A. Gautier
This paper presents a matching model with low, and high,skilled workers and simple and complex jobs. I show that the degree to which low,skilled workers are harmed by high,skilled workers who are willing to temporarily accept simple jobs depends on the relative productivity of high, and low,skilled workers on simple jobs and on the quit rate of high,skilled workers. Under certain conditions, low,skilled workers can benefit from job competition with high,skilled workers. Within this framework, some explanations for the high and persistent unemployment rates of lower educated workers in the 1990s are evaluated. [source]

Critical Events and Labour Mobility: Relocations in the Wake of the Ansett Airlines Collapse

GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2009
SALLY WELLER
Abstract Migration plays an important role in neo-liberal regional adjustment. This paper explores the role of economic shocks in stimulating internal migration within Australia. Drawing on the experiences of retrenched Ansett Airlines employees, it argues that economic crisis impels some households to relocate but traps others in places with restricted employment prospects. For some, the crisis of retrenchment triggers inter-state migration to take up new jobs. For others, it prompts relocation to less expensive housing, often in a geographically proximate location. These opposing responses, which are different outcomes of similar causal processes, exacerbate regional inequalities since they selectively encourage younger skilled workers to enter growing regions. The combination of high housing costs and insecure employment discourages speculative migration. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the policy implications of these findings. [source]

Aggregation Bias in Elasticities of Substitution and the Minimum Wage Paradox

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2000
Coen N. Teulings
While the employment effects of minimum wages are usually reported to be small (suggesting low substitutability between skill types), direct estimates suggest a much larger degree of substitutability. This article argues that this paradox is largely due to a bias induced by the aggregation of skill types into broad categories. An assignment model is applied where skilled workers have a comparative advantage in complex jobs. The implied pattern of substitutability reveals the sources of the bias. Estimation results for the United States show elasticities of complementarity to be underestimated by up to a factor 2.5. The methods laid out likewise can be applied to other markets where different quality types are close substitutes, such as the housing market. [source]

Minimum and preferred entry qualifications and training provision for North Australian workers

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2006
Bruce Acutt
This paper reports on the outcomes of a replication study of a survey of British employers that requested information on the qualifications sought when recruiting employees and on subsequent training and development. While the British survey was interested in the uptake and use of the British National Vocational Qualifications, the study reported in this article is primarily focused on the uptake and use of the Australian Qualifications Framework qualifications by North Australian employers. This study was prompted by the skills shortages and recruitment difficulties being experienced by organizations throughout rural and regional Australia. Previous studies have found that vocational qualifications were not valued by UK employers and few employers were encouraging employees to undertake vocational awards. If this is also the case in Australia, it may in part explain problems in recruiting skilled workers. This research clearly demonstrates that employees in regional and rural Australia are seeking to improve their knowledge and skills through vocational training and higher education qualifications. Also, employers are providing access to training and are supporting managerial and professional employees to gain higher educational qualifications. When recruiting all types of worker other than unskilled labourers, the majority of organizations prefer to recruit workers with qualifications. In rural and regional centres, however, a more pragmatic stance of recruiting unqualified employees in some areas is observed. Clearly, employers will attempt to minimize training costs by recruiting skilled employees, but in the end they will have to provide access to training and education to ensure that they have a skilled workforce that can deliver essential services and products. [source]

Progressive Taxes and the Labour Market: Is the Trade,off Between Equality and Efficiency Inevitable?

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 1 2002
Knut Røed
Does an income tax harm economic efficiency more the more progressive it is? Public economics provides a strong case for a definite ,yes'. But at least three forces may pull in the other direction. First, low,wage workers may on average have more elastic labour supply schedules than high,wage workers, in which case progressive taxes contribute to a more efficient allocation of the total tax burden. Second, in non,competitive labour markets, progressive taxes may encourage wage moderation, and hence reduce the equilibrium level of unemployment. And third, if wage setters have egalitarian objectives, progressive taxes may reduce the need for redistribution in pre,tax wages, and hence increase the demand for low,skilled workers. This paper surveys the theoretical, as well as the empirical literature about labour supply, taxes and wage setting. We conclude that in a second best world, the trade,off between equality and efficiency is not always inevitable. [source]

On-line Compared with Face-to-face Introductory Food Science Courses: An Assessment

JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE EDUCATION, Issue 1 2003
J.D. Culbertson
ABSTRACT: This study tracked and compared the performance of traditional classroom and on-line students in 2 introductory level food science classes. Student evaluations were also compared for the 2 groups. All of the Face-to-face (FTF) students were full-time college students. Seventynine percent of on-line students lived over 50 miles from campus. About 21% of the on-line enrollments were of skilled workers from the food industry. Performance on standardized exams was significantly higher for on-line students. Student evaluations were very positive for both forms of instruction. Differences in maturity, academic load, motivation, class standing, and experience/knowledge of the food industry may have all played a role in the observed results. Although our study cannot differentiate between these effects, it is apparent that on-line food science instruction can be an effective alternative for individuals who are unable to attend traditional courses. [source]

Christianity, Gender, and the Working Class in Southern Dunedin, 1880,19401

JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, Issue 1 2006
JOHN STENHOUSE
This article is a study of the southern suburbs of Dunedin, which during the late nineteenth century became the most industrialized and working class urban area of New Zealand. Analyzing the social composition of fifteen southern Dunedin churches, I question the idea, widely held by New Zealand historians, that the working classes had largely turned their backs on organized religion. In keeping with recent scholarship in the social history of British and Irish religion, I show that unskilled workers were better represented in many southern Dunedin congregations that previous historians have acknowledged and that skilled workers numerically dominated most churches. When women are included in the analysis, working class predominance increases further. Signing the suffrage petition in remarkable proportions, working class Christian women turned the southern suburbs into a world-leading first wave feminist community. Moreover, varieties of popular Christianity flourished beyond the ranks of active churchgoers. I conclude by suggesting that New Zealand historians need to rethink the old "lapsed masses" and "secular New Zealand" assumptions and to investigate the diverse varieties of Christianity shaping the culture, and their sometimes conflicting this-worldly meanings. [source]

Matching Efficiency and Labour Market Reform in Italy: A Macroeconometric Assessment

LABOUR, Issue 1 2007
Sergio Destefanis
We re-parameterize the matching function as a Beveridge Curve and estimate it as a production frontier, finding huge differences in matching efficiency between the South and the rest of the country. The Treu Act appears to have improved matching efficiency in the North of the country, particularly for skilled workers, but also to have strengthened competition among skilled and unskilled workers, especially in the South. [source]

The Structure of Wages in the Netherlands, 1986,98

LABOUR, Issue 3 2003
Bas Ter Weel
For many OECD countries an increase in wage inequality has been documented since the early 1980s. This is often attributed to a general rise in the demand for skilled workers resulting from recent technological change. Using the Organization for Strategic Labour Market Research (OSA) Labour Supply data, this paper studies the wage structure in the Netherlands over the period 1986,98 and demonstrates that wage inequality did not increase to any significant extent in the Netherlands. Using the accounting framework proposed by Juhn et al. (Journal of Political Economy 101: 410,442, 1993), it is shown that the relatively stable wage structure until at least the late 1990s can be attributed mainly to returns to observable components, such as education and experience, while residual wage inequality is found to be of minor importance in explaining the Dutch wage structure. These estimates suggest that the demand for skill in the Netherlands is likely not to have been rising to the extent it did in many other countries over this period. [source]

Technological and organizational changes as determinants of the skill bias: evidence from the Italian machinery industry

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2006
Mariacristina Piva
Recent empirical literature has introduced the ,Skill Biased Organizational Change' (SBOC) hypothesis, according to which organizational change can be considered as one of the main causes of the skill bias (increase in the number of highly skilled workers) exhibited by manufacturing employment in developed countries. This paper focuses on the importance of the SBOC with respect to the more traditional ,Skill Biased Technological Change' in driving the skill composition of workers in the Italian machinery sector. A dynamic panel data analysis is proposed which uses a unique firm-level dataset. The results show that both skilled and unskilled workers are negatively affected by technological change, while organizational change,which in turn may be linked to new technologies,is positively linked to skilled workers. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Earnings Differentials between State and Non-State Enterprises in Urban China

PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2002
Yaohui Zhao
The present paper estimates earnings differentials between state and non-state sectors for Chinese urban residents in 1996 by taking into account differences in non-wage benefits. Household survey data are used to estimate wage differentials while aggregate statistics are utilised in estimating non-wage benefits. We find that state-sector workers earned significantly more than workers in urban collective and domestic private enterprises in 1996. Unskilled workers in foreign invested enterprises (FIE) earned significantly less than those in the state sector but skilled workers earned more in FIE than in the state sector. These findings shed light on the source of labour immobility that state-owned enterprise had experienced until recently. [source]

Strategies for Developing a High-Skilled Workforce

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2004
Catherine M. Sleezer
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the human performance improvement and human resource development task of providing an organization with a skilled workforce. We begin by describing the U.S. demographic trends and the changing job skill requirements that will lead to a shortage of skilled workers and that highlight the importance of considering the various strategies that are available for developing a skilled workforce. Then, using perspectives found in the literature, we examine four strategies for developing a skilled workforce: (1) hire and then train the workers, (2) transfer individual workers, (3) relocate the work, and (4) create an educational infrastructure within a community to develop a workforce with the needed skills. We conclude by comparing the four strategies and identifying the advantages, disadvantages, and most effective uses of each. [source]

International migration and the Rainbow Nation

POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 1 2006
David Lucas
Abstract Recent statistics suggest that emigration from South Africa is accelerating while documented immigration remains at low levels. Primary analysis of a 10% sample of the overseas-born in South Africa from the 1996 census confirmed that Black immigrants to South Africa were shown to be predominantly unskilled males, who were no better qualified than the Black population in general. This contrasts with the apartheid era when South Africa built up a stock of overseas-born skilled workers, mostly Whites, which was not replenished in the 1990s, partly because of restrictive immigration policies. The UK is the major destination for South Africans but lacks detailed data on the characteristics of the immigrants. The second destination is Australia and New Zealand combined. Comparisons are made with published census data on the South Africa-born in Australia and New Zealand. A majority of emigrants have post-school qualifications and professional occupations, reflecting the selective immigration criteria of Australia and New Zealand. The analysis confirms the importance of human capital to potential emigrants even though they may wish to move for non-economic reasons. It also supports the view that South Africa had moved from a brain exchange of Whites to a brain drain, thus compounding a national shortage of skilled workers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Family business in Russia: the path to middle class?

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2001
Nonna Barkhatova
ABSTRACT The paper seeks to explore via a series of interview-based case studies aspects of the emergence of an entrepreneurial middle-class in Russia. The paper notes the origins of those studied in the professional or highly skilled workers in the former Soviet Union. The paper reveals the complexity and fragility of the circumstances of these entrepreneurs and suggests that commentary in both Russia and the West that pins its hopes for social stability on the emergence of a new property owning middle class in Russia are, at best, premature. [source]

Internal promotion competitions in firms

THE RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2006
Jed DeVaro
Using a sample of skilled workers from a cross section of establishments in four metropolitan areas of the United States, I present evidence suggesting that promotions are determined by relative worker performance. I then estimate a structural model of promotion tournaments (treating as endogenous promotions, worker performance, and the wage spread from promotion) that simultaneously accounts for worker and firm behavior and how the interaction of these behaviors gives rise to promotions. The results are consistent with the predictions of tournament theory that employers set wage spreads to induce optimal performance levels, and that workers are motivated by larger spreads. [source]

Evaluation of a Program on Systematic Self-Monitoring and Reflection of Health Behavior in Organisations: Results of Two Randomised Controlled Studies on Well-Being and Absenteeism of Employees and Skilled Workers

A new deal for lone parents?

AREA, Issue 2 2008
Training lone parents for work in West London
In this paper we explore the impacts of the training programmes offered to lone mothers with young children on the Government's ,New Deal for Lone Parents' in one local labour market: West London. Our research suggests that regulatory workfare policies are (re)producing and reinforcing gendered inequalities in the labour market by encouraging lone mothers to undertake training in feminised occupational areas such as childcare. We will argue that in a local economy such as West London where more childcare workers are desperately needed to enable other more highly skilled workers to take up employment opportunities, such training programmes may be doing little more than exacerbating the already gendered and class-based polarisation of the labour market , embedding low-skilled, poorly qualified lone mothers into low-paid jobs. [source]

Optimal Structure of Technology Adoption and Creation: Basic versus Development Research in Relation to the Distance from the Technological Frontier,

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009
Joonkyung Ha
O31; O47 Many economists maintain that in order to advance economic growth Asian countries should focus more on basic research than on technology adoption, and more on the supply of skilled workers than the supply of unskilled workers. In this context, this paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the observation that a country in which the level of technology approaches the technology frontier tends to rely more on technology creation than adoption, and invest more in basic research than in development. The model shows that technology creation involves both basic and development research processes, whereas technology adoption uses only the latter process. Therefore, R&D investment in our model involves three different processes: basic research in technology creation, development in technology creation, and development in technology adoption. The results suggest first that the rate of growth is positively correlated with the level of basic research activities in the technology creation sector, if a country's technology gap with the technology frontier is small enough. Second, an increase in the efficiency of the education system for highly skilled workers raises the level of basic research and the rate of growth. Third, verifying these theoretical results, empirical analyses using panel data from Korea, Japan and Taipei, China show that the narrower the distance to the technological frontier, the higher the growth effect of basic R&D, which indicates that the share of basic R&D matters for economic growth. Finally, the results also show that the quality of tertiary education has a significantly positive effect on the productivity of R&D. [source]

Training and Technology Transfer

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 1 2003
Neil Campbell
This paper analyses technology transfer from a multinational corporation (MNC) to a developing economy via training of local workers by the MNC. The paper analyses the determinants of the level of training by the MNC assuming a local entrant can subsequently hire MNC,trained workers and compete with the MNC. It is shown that a small training subsidy paid by the host government may cause the MNC to switch from entry,deterring behaviour to entry,accommodating behaviour. Such a subsidy will cause an increase in the number of skilled workers but may increase or decrease the domestic welfare of the developing country. [source]

UNEMPLOYMENT POLICIES IN AN ECONOMY WITH ADVERSE SELECTION

BULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007
Noritaka Kudoh
D82; J65; J68 ABSTRACT This paper studies the effects of unemployment policies in a simple static general equilibrium model with adverse selection in the labour market. Firms offer a contract that induces the self-selection of workers. In equilibrium, all unskilled workers are screened out and some skilled workers are rationed out. It is shown that the provision of unemployment insurance raises involuntary unemployment by encouraging adverse selection, while unemployment assistance , or subsidy to unemployment , reduces involuntary unemployment. A simple efficiency wage model is also presented to show that either of the two policies reduces employment by taxing effort and subsidizing shirking. The key is whether the social role of unemployment is a sorting device or a worker discipline device. [source]

Demand for skills in Canada: the role of foreign outsourcing and information-communication technology

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2006
Beiling Yan
Over the same period, there have been dramatic increases in expenditures on information and communication technologies (ICT) and in purchases of foreign intermediate inputs. This raises an obvious and important question: what is the role of ICT and foreign outsourcing in the increased demand for skilled workers? Using 84 Canadian manufacturing industries over 1981,96, we find that both ICT and foreign outsourcing are important contributors to the demand for skills. JEL classification: F16 O33 Demande de qualifications au Canada: le rôle de la sous-traitance à l'étranger et des technologies d'information et de communication., L'une des caractéristiques importantes de l'économie canadienne au cours des deux dernières décennies a été l'écart croissant entre les niveaux de salaires des travailleurs plus et moins qualifiés. Au cours de la même période, il y a eu un accroissement important dans les dépenses pour les technologies de l'information et de communication (TIC) et dans les achats d'intrants intermédiaires à l'étranger. Voilà qui pose une question évidente et importante: quel est l'impact des TIC et de la sous-traitance àl'étranger sur la demande de travailleurs qualifiés? A l'aide de données pour 84 industries manufacturières canadiennes pour la période 1981,1996, on découvre que les TIC et la sous-traitance à l'étranger contribuent de manière importante à la demande de qualifications. [source]