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This paper analyzes whether part-time employment is beneficial for firm productivity in the service sector. Using a unique dataset on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the work hours of all employees and a 'hard' physical measure of firm productivity, we estimate a production function including heterogeneous employment shares based on work hours. We find that a larger part-time employment share leads to greater firm productivity. Additional data on the timing of labor demand show that part-time employment enables firms to allocate labor more efficiently. First, firms with part-time workers can bridge the gap between opening hours and a full-time work week. Second, we find that during opening hours part-time workers are scheduled differently than full-timers. For example, we find that part-time workers enable their full-time colleagues to take lunch breaks so that the firm can remain open during these times.

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According to the Human Capital (HC) theory, the investment in education/training should benefit (a) the employee, by increasing his/her ability to command higher wages, and (b) the employer, by increasing the organisation's productivity. Research in HC theory generally supports the presence of a positive and direct effect of training on productivity. In this study, [the author] considered the possibility that training might affect productivity in a less direct way. According to this indirect effect hypothesis, training might affect variables such as the turnover within a company, the level of absenteeism, and job satisfaction, which in turn might have positive or negative effects on productivity. The objective of this research was to ascertain both the direct and indirect effect of training on productivity.

The results of the first set of analyses were partially consistent with the notion of an indirect effect of training on productivity. [The author] found robust relationships between training and turnover and between training and job satisfaction in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. However, [the author] found a very limited effect of training on absenteeism. The results of the cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses performed in the second step did not confirm the hypothesis of an indirect effect of training on productivity, since none of the variables of interest: absenteeism, turnover, and job satisfaction, had any consistent effect on productivity. Additionally, no consistent direct effect of training on productivity was observed.

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Improving economic growth is a key policy objective for the UK government. Therefore, understanding the drivers of productivity growth is a fundamental requirement for effective economic policy. Current measurements of productivity, based on the 'tangible' inputs of capital and labour, do not fully account for variations in performance. As a result of this there is a growing interest in 'intangible' assets and their potential to help us to better understand the sources of growth. Intangible assets are embedded in knowledge workers, and as such are difficult to disentangle from firms' human capital. This research develops measures of intangible assets for UK firms based on the labour input of workers in high skilled organisations, [research and development] and [information technology] IT related occupations. These measures are then used to assess how firms employ intangible assets to increase productivity and raise economic performance. Intangibles are important in most sectors but are dominant in a handful. The findings support the expectation that sectors driven by high technology are likely to have higher levels of intangible assets. However, it is clear that intangible assets are not limited to these sectors. The econometric results indicate that intangible assets have a significant, positive, association with productivity, and that firms with a higher proportion of intangible assets are more likely to be highly productive. The various elements of intangible assets contribute in different ways. Particularly of note is that organisation capital, contributing to economic competences, has a greater impact than either [research and development] or IT capital. This suggests that a key factor in explaining differences in productivity are due to the way organisations are managed and run.

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In this paper we show that vocational training is an important determinant of productivity growth. We construct a multi-country, multi-sectoral dataset, and quantify empirically to what extent vocational training has contributed to increase the growth rate of labor productivity in Europe between 1999 and 2005. We find that one extra hour of training per employee accelerates the rate of productivity growth by around 0.55 percentage points.

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Innovation is seen as a way of increasing productivity in firms and also increasing prosperity for the nation. This 'at a glance' publication examines what is meant by innovation, the relationship between innovation and productivity, and the types of skills that are relevant to innovation. It also discusses the implications of innovation for the training system, government and enterprises. Show less

This paper investigates a tentative finding in recent literature that the age dispersion of workers matters for average firm productivity. The reason is not related to differences in the workers' age specific productivity levels. Rather it is that workers of different ages are complementary in their effects on average firm productivity. The approach is an econometric study for Australia using the only publicly available matched employee-employer data which is extracted from the [Australian Workers Industrial Relations Survey] AWIRS 95 survey, along with data from a small online pilot survey conducted for the purposes of this study. The results support the tentative suggestion from prior studies, using somewhat different methodologies, that a more widely dispersed workforce by age is positive for productivity. This may have implications for human resource management of firms and for public policy, for example in relation to immigration.

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The Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake an inquiry into the implications of globalisation for the retail industry and the sustainability and appropriateness of current indirect taxation arrangements in this environment. This report outlines findings from the inquiry. Chapter 12, 'Employment, skills and training', covers the trends in employment levels in retail, characteristics of the retail workforce, distribution of hours worked, educational attainment and job satisfaction of retail workers, part-time employment rates, employers views on the need for flexibility in the retail workforce, impact of online retailing on employment, employment growth projections for retail, institutional arrangements for the delivery of retail industry training, employer use of formal training in retail, changes to government assistance to encourage employers to take on retail apprentices, labour shortages and skill levels affecting the retail industry, and changing skill requirements in the industry.

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At its March 2008 meeting, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a new reform agenda aimed at boosting productivity, increasing workforce participation and mobility, and improving the quality of public services. In 2010, the Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to report every two to three years on the impacts and benefits of specified aspects of the COAG reform agenda. The first study on the impacts of COAG reforms focuses on assessing aspects of the ‘Seamless national economy’ regulatory reform priorities and the vocational education and training (VET) reforms and initiatives that support young people to make successful transitions from school to further education, training and employment. This discussion draft has been prepared for public consultation and input. It is in three volumes. Volume one contains the overview of the study and details the economic context within which the reforms will take place, the Productivity Commission’s preliminary assessment of the overall impacts of the regulation and the VET reforms. Volumes two and three contain work-in-progress chapters which assess the impacts of the 17 ‘Seamless national economy’ deregulation priorities and the VET reforms respectively. Show less

This report aims to show that Australian universities can play a lead role in future productivity growth. Economic modelling of the outcomes of reforms outlined in the Bradley Review of Higher Education suggest they would add 5.6 per cent to national productivity by 2040 and 6.4 per cent to Australia's GDP [gross domestic product]. Overall higher education reform and resourcing would deliver a Commonwealth budget surplus of $325.5 billion better than the no-reform path in the period 2011-2040. However, the report notes that these results will only occur if universities are resourced appropriately and managed efficiently. Show less

This report provides an assessment of human capital development in British Columbia. The province’s performance is above average according to the majority of the indicators we analyze, relative to both the rest of Canada and other OECD countries. However, this does not mean that there is no room for improvement. We identify four areas in which improvements would be likely to contribute to productivity growth in British Columbia: the underutilization of the skills of recent immigrants; the poor educational outcomes of Aboriginal people; the below-average production of advanced human capital through graduate training; and the problem of high school non-completion. We provide policy recommendations pertaining to each of these four challenges.

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