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Following the onset of the recent global recession, most countries have faced a serious problem in providing employment for the population of their countries. For the richer OECD countries, the post-war period with high levels of employment and low unemployment came to an abrupt end. However, for most of the less developed countries the problem of low employment, poor wages, and insecure employment was a continuing one. The aim of this paper is to analyse the evidence of a trade-off between employment and productivity. In general, the results of this study suggest that there is evidence of a trade-off between employment and productivity, that investment and industrial production growth increase productivity growth, and the share of agriculture in [gross domestic product] GDP is negatively correlated to productivity growth. The paper highlights some policy implications that follow from its empirical investigations. It suggests that it is not possible to provide a 'one-size-fits-all' set of policies as different countries face different social, cultural, institutional, and historical conditions. Some brief case studies of low, middle and high income countries are included.

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This report provides a multi-sectoral empirical analysis of employment challenges and opportunities to inform strategies and policy actions in Cote d'Ivoire. It aims to expand policy discussions on employment from a focus on the number of jobs and unemployment to a broader attention on the quality, productivity and inclusiveness of jobs. It makes the case for a jobs strategy with a sharper poverty lens that would focus on raising labor productivity in agriculture and informal off-farm employment to foster structural transformation, while, in parallel, pursuing longer-term goals of expanding the thin formal sector.

Edited excerpt from publisher's website.

The contents are as follows: Overview and executive summary; The challenge of employment quality and productive inclusion in Cote d'Ivoire / Patrick Premand and Bienvenue N. Tien; Jobs within the structural transformation: insights for Cote d'Ivoire / Luc Christiaensen and Gabriel Lawin; Maximizing agriculture's contribution to the jobs agenda / Luc Christiaensen and Gabriel Lawin; Raising productivity in nonagricultural self-employment in Cote d'Ivoire / Bienvenue N. Tien and Patrick Premand; Trends and prospects for formal job creation in Cote d'Ivoire / Sarah Hebous and Trang Thu Tran; Education, skills, and training for a competitive workforce in Cote d'Ivoire / Kebede Feda and Laura Ralston. Show less

The management of workplace change takes place in many industry contexts and micro-settings using a variety of approaches, all of which are widely reported in the academic and professional literature. There is less known about workplace change management in the context of an international company employing large numbers of Mainland Chinese employees. The company needed to improve its delivery of service quality; in this case to the maintenance of elevators and escalators, especially where breakdowns occur and customers get frustrated. It was imperative to change the work behaviour of the Chinese workforce. Integral to the change management strategy was the dual application of action research and workplace learning, natural companions in the process of modifying work attitudes and behaviour. This case study reports the design, implementation and evaluation of a process improvement program ‘custom built’ for the Chinese employees of the international company.

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The Five-factor model is widely accepted as a robust model of personality that influences workplace behaviour and performance. Given evidence of persistent skills gaps in Australia, it is important to explore personality traits in business graduates to understand whether they have the necessary characteristics to enable the country to perform successfully nationally and to compete on a global level, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty. This study examines personality traits in 674 Australian business graduates, using the ten-item personality inventory (TIPI), and variations in traits across demographic/background characteristics.

The results indicate that graduates are relatively high in extroversion, conscientiousness and emotional stability and low in openness and agreeableness. Some gender differences were apparent. The findings are largely positive for organizational performance, but raise concern for organizational well-being, effective leadership and innovativeness. There is some alignment between the findings and documented deficiencies in graduate performance, highlighting areas for intervention. Strategies for managing typical traits in business graduates and their potential impact on prevalent skills gaps are discussed for both professional and education practitioners.

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The aim of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (AWPA), building on the work of Skills Australia, is to improve long term workforce planning and development and to address skills and labour shortages and contribute to improvements in industry and workplace productivity. This discussion paper considers the skills and workforce development needs that would arise from a number of different scenarios for Australia’s future. It presents research on current issues in relation to productivity and workforce participation, examines issues in relation to future demand from industry and starts to explore policy options. The paper invites stakeholder input on these matters prior to the AWPA providing advice to government in late 2012. It forms part of a wider consultation process and is only intended to outline broad issues and seek answers to questions. Stakeholder views will contribute to the development of the 2012 National Workforce Development Strategy.

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This article considers how ways can be found to measure the gains in productivity from every training dollar spent. Training for training’s sake risks a rejection of the current training focus. The benefits of training to the business as well as the individual must be identified. Show less

The aim of this paper is to analyse the business strategies of Spanish companies in terms of vocational education and training (VET), identifying and studying the general characteristics of Spanish manufacturing companies and their differences based on human resources employed with professional training. This analysis will be developed quantitatively, within the framework of the Business Strategies Survey of SEPI Foundation, which is an annual panel survey, aimed at industrial manufacturing companies based in Spain. The survey referred to 2016-2017 will incorporate, for the first time, some items related to VET, being surveyed 1800 industrial companies. This analysis will be developed from a knowledge economy approach. The contribution of this research makes to the field lies in its novel comparative approach and in the quantitative scale of the sample. Nevertheless, the research has its limitations and that it is necessary to continue study in this significant scientific field.

Published abstract.

The volume from which this paper is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 138.635. Show less

Out of four major structural changes affecting the US economy - namely a rising share of skilled workers, skill-biased technological change, decreasing progressiveness of taxation and productivity slowdown - we show that the decline in productivity growth not only is the main driver of the widening wealth disparities observed in the United States of America over the past few decades, but is also the only mechanism that can explain inequalities both within and between skill groups.

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This paper contains an overview of conceptual and measurement issues related to the vertical differentiation of work tasks. The main conclusions, based on a synthetic literature review and measurement examples from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU) and the European Social Survey (ESS), are as follows. First, job complexity is the main dimension of the vertical variation in work content. A large number of empirical studies in several disciplines converge on this conclusion. Productivity appears to be the driving mechanism of the tight link between job complexity and rewards. Second, time-based measures of job complexity (skill requirements) work well. By now there are well-established indicators of educational requirements and initial on-the-job learning, with good measurement properties. However, more work is needed on indicators of continuing on-the-job learning (both formal and informal). Finally, horizontal, as opposed to vertical, variation in work content is well captured by the distinction between working with people, data and things (PDT). Broad task indicators of PDT are now included in the LNU and ESS surveys. Relations between vertical (job complexity) and horizontal (task variation within complexity levels) dimensions of work content are important issues to be examined in future research based on these and other data.

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Purpose: The major objective of this study is to examine the efficacy of the technical and vocational training courses imparted to generate employment or enhance the productivity of participants. Design/methodology/approach: The study was conducted in the province of Sindh, Pakistan by adopting a quasi-experimental approach. The experiment was conducted on 105 individuals-with the age group of 20-25-distributed between the treatment group and the control group. The data collected through the experiment were analyzed by applying a paired-sample t-test, independent sample t-test and one-way between-group analysis of variance (ANOVA). Findings: The findings of this study show statistically significant higher monthly earnings of Rs14, 223 after the training intervention program. Findings also exhibit a significant difference in monthly earnings between the control and the treatment groups. Practical implications: The findings of the study can provide useful input to policymakers while devising the policies regarding technical education and vocational training (TVET) and to the international donors in assessing the impact of the training initiatives. Originality/value: This study presents experimental-driven evidence on the role of technical education and vocational training in improving the labor market outcomes.

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