http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:9107 Minimum wages remain a feature of advanced economies. Even in countries with neo-liberal policy settings, the minimum wage remains. Why, in a neo-liberal context, are minimum wages retained? To consider these issues we examine Australia, the UK and the USA. We also examine the processes associated with minimum wage adjustment including coverage, enforcement, frequency, determination criteria and timing. On these issues we demonstrate some major differences across the minimum wage systems. 2013-03-18T06:04:49.238Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:9110 Dubai has evolved from a sparsely populated desert region on the Arabian Gulf to a dynamic and fast growing city. The boom in construction and services is built upon a large immigrant labour force. The labour market is highly segregated firstly between local and expatriate workers, and secondly among the expatriate workers depending on whether they are categorised as professional, construction or service sector workers. Despite the rapid growth and manifestations of modernity in Dubai there are stories emerging concerning the violation of human rights particularly with respect to contracted migrant workers. Despite its rapid transformation Dubai does not have the institutions or infrastructure that support and protect fundamental labour standards and even where there are regulated migrant programs (as in Dubai), workers are potentially subject to exploitation. This paper examines the labour market and industrial relations system in Dubai and asks whether growth is compromised by promoting fundamental labour standards. 2013-03-18T05:52:16.526Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12310 Questions regarding the appropriate level of scale for policy intervention are an important issue for policy stakeholders. The re-emergence of the debate between people and place based policy in recent years has helped frame these questions and in particular has raised issues regarding the most appropriate level of policy focus. This paper contributes to this debate by using a broad notion of employability to drive a conceptual understanding of labour market outcomes and illustrates this with an empirical example. The paper concludes by arguing that labour market policy needs to focus on both people and place based approaches. 2012-12-19T00:21:27.288Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12099 This paper continues our work focused on developing a new socioeconomic geography for Australia such that the chosen spatial aggregation of data is based on an analysis of economic behaviour. The underlying hypothesis is that the development of a geographical classification based on underlying economic behaviour will provide new insights into critical issues of regional performance, including unemployment differentials, the impact of industry, infrastructure and changes in local public expenditure on local labour markets. As a precursor to detailed work on the 2006 Census data, we establish the proof of concept in this paper of the Intramax methodology using 2001 ABS Journey-to-Work data for NSW. The functional regionalisation generated by the Intramax method is then tested using ABS labour force data. We compare 2001 ABS Census data aggregated by the ABS labour force regions to the same data aggregated using our functional regions. The results demonstrate the potential value of this technique for the development of a new geography. 2012-11-22T04:59:10.088Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12100 This paper employs the Labour Market Accounts framework to explore how employment growth and commuting patterns interacted to determine changes in the spatial distribution of unemployment in Statistical Local Areas within the Sydney MSR over the period 1996-2001. Employment change over time is resolved by a combination of: (a) changes in the local employment of residents, which can incorporate net in or out-migration; and (b) changes in the level of net in- or out-commuting. Labour force changes are also decomposed. Separate regression models (including control variables) for men and women are estimated to estimate the relative strength of the relationships between these labour market adjustment responses and the percentage local employment change. The results show that employment growth between 1996 and 2001 has elicited substantial changes in commuting behaviour. Men reveal relatively greater in commuting and migration responsiveness to employment growth. Unemployment changes in local areas are swamped by commuting responses. 2012-11-22T04:57:40.080Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12098 It has been argued that declining housing affordability in Australia’s major cities has led to the exclusion of some low and moderate income residents from high employment, innercity regions. If there is an increasing spatial mismatch between housing and employment, moderately paid workers, essential to the efficient functioning of the urban economy, may face problems in accessing and retaining employment. However to date there has been a lack of empirical analysis of the overlap between spatial dimensions of housing and employment (and the commuting such divisions necessitate) broken down by occupation. Using the 2001 Census Journey to Work data, broken down by occupation, we employ a range of analytic techniques to examine local labour markets in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Firstly we develop formal commuting areas which represent local labour markets. Secondly, we examine self-average commutes and self-containment ratios for occupational groups across the metropolitan local labour markets. Secondly, linear programming techniques are employed to examine the nature of commuting, given the complex locational decisions made by residents. Results reveal some variation in commuting patterns across occupations with little variation in commutes but higher self-containment ratios at the SLA level for some low-skilled occupations. However longer commutes are found amongst low-skill occupations after controlling for the ‘excess’ or volitional nature of commuting, and suggests the distribution of jobs given the distribution of residents is more unequal for low-skill occupations. High skill occupations tend to display higher rates of excess commuting reflecting that factors other than job-proximity may be influencing their locational decisions. 2012-11-22T04:15:25.910Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12094 In the USA residential segregation has been shown to reinforce racial inequality and promote labour market segregation through income polarisation and differential rates of unemployment. However the available population data can compromise the measurement of residential segregation due to the MAUP and the checkerboard problem. Also debate continues over the desirable criteria of residential segregation indexes. This paper has two objectives: i) to investigate the use of kernel density estimation as a means of spatially smoothing population data prior to the measurement of residential segregation ; and ii) to explore the merits of different criteria underpinning spatial measures of residential segregation, given the arguments of Reardon and O'Sullivan and other contemporary literature. These objectives will be illustrated by the analysis of residential segregation in the Sydney Commuting Area in 2001, using different parameter values for the underlying kernel density estimation. 2012-11-22T02:33:31.633Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:2533 Spatially disaggregated data are typically based on administrative convention, rather than the identification of functional economic areas, which can compromise the interpretation of spatial data. Using measures of closure and interaction based on commuting patterns, Coombes et al (1986) developed an algorithm to identify UK Local Labour Markets (LLMs) based on Census data. In this paper we refine this algorithm to undertake a preliminary investigation of whether meaningful LLMs within NSW can be generated using Journey to Work data by Statistical Local Area from the 2001 Census. The extent to which these LLMs differ by gender and groups of occupations will be explored. The trade off between high rates of closure and high interaction rates of areas within LLMs will be considered, along with the extent to which the LLMs coincide with the ABS NSW Statistical Regions and the regions devised by the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics. 2012-11-22T00:10:05.333Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12030 This paper analyses increased labour market flexibility in terms of the shift from permanent to temporary work, and the impact on hours worked. We hypothesise that recessions facilitate a "paradigm shift", which allows employers to intensify the underlying shifts that are occurring as a result of decreased union power and increased globalisation. We set up a simple model to derive hypotheses in this regard, and test these using Australian data. We find evidence that employers create their own internal slack (in terms of part time employment) which may be exploited in more prosperous times. This finding is important because it defies the Philips curve relationship between unemployment rates and inflation. 2012-11-19T03:23:32.984Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:11736 In Australia and most OECD economies there have been persistent differences in labour market outcomes for males and females, reflecting differences in human capital, the distribution of non-market work, employment conditions and arrangements, the structure of internal labour markets and direct and indirect forms of gender discrimination. Each country has inherited a different set of institutional arrangements that underpin the functioning of the labour market. 2012-10-16T04:31:37.861Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:11655 We argue that the Government's model of the labour market is flawed. If through their impact on the NAIRU [Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment], institutional and behavioural factors are the major cause of unemployment in Australia, why do unemployment rates differ significantly across regions with identical institutional and legal structures? The paper argues that targeted demand stimuli to areas of high unemployment and underutilised infrastructure would be a more effective way to reduce both regional unemployment and the NAIRU, rather than increasing the incentives for labour to relocate to low unemployment urban areas where infrastructure is already overutilised. Regional employment generation administered by Councils within a Job Guarantee program to meet local needs would be an appropriate approach. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 reviews the extant empirical literature on inter-state labour mobility. A modified wage curve is developed for Statistical Regions in Section 3, in which an analysis of the convergence of unemployment rates across Statistical Local Areas is also cited. Section 4 provides an overview of contemporary policy approaches to unemployment in regional areas. In the final section, some policy initiatives and concluding comments are presented. 2012-10-08T04:37:20.415Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6715 Employment relations as a field of research has historically drawn on market and institutional factors to explain much of its observed phenomena. Independent variables such as the state and dynamics of product and labour markets along with regulatory regimes have typically featured in explanations of the development and substance of the rules of the employment relationship. More recently, a stream of literature has begun to consider how corporate governance (defined broadly as the financing and control of corporations) might impact upon employment relations. This emerging corporate governance and employment relations literature raises many novel, interesting and as yet unexplored issues. The research reported in this chapter investigated whether Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) influences employment relations practices. 'Influence' has been construed imprecisely as we leave open the possibility that SRI may have an influence on firm level and, more indirectly, national employment relations. We outline the size of SRI funds globally and review different explanations for SRI development across various developed economies. We then discuss the link between SRI and employment relations. Next the research methodology is explained, and then the data are presented and discussed. From the results we conclude that for SRI to be more effective in delivering social returns to its investors, reform is required. 2011-12-14T05:50:01.910Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:9402 It is becoming increasingly apparent that, in order to understand a range of socio-economic outcomes, research needs to be focused on a multi-dimensional approach that accounts for individual characteristics and behaviours together with locality and activity within space and place. Within labour market analysis there is a need to situate empirical analysis within a conceptual framework that considers both the assets of individuals within the labour force and the social and local labour market contexts in which they find themselves. Using a broad notion of employability, this paper develops an analysis of unemployment in Australia’s metropolitan labour markets. Specifically it uses a combination of individual survey data and aggregate labour market data to consider the associations between these multi-level factors. It finds that, while individual characteristics are important in understanding unemployment in metropolitan areas, it is equally the case that the strength of spatially distinct labour markets also plays a role. The paper reaches the conclusion that, while contemporary labour market policy tends to focus on individual characteristics, there is a need to widen the policy understanding of labour market outcomes so that other broader contexts, including the impact of space and place, are also seen as being influential. 2011-11-16T21:40:08.417Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:8796 People with mental illness are highly disadvantaged in the labour market, recording high unemployment rates, relatively low earnings, participation and employment rates. They are firmly entrenched at the back of the jobs queue. This paper considers the likely impact on people with mental illness of the 2010 changes to Disability Employment Services. The new system offers greater opportunity for tailoring services to individual needs but falls short of a "best practice" model due to two major deficiencies. First, retention of Welfare to Work imposes participation requirements, is disempowering, risks detrimental impacts on mental health and impedes effective relationships between employment consultants and job seekers. Second, the absence of policies to stimulate labour demand in favour of concentrating on supply-side policies will hamper the ability of this cohort to obtain and retain employment. 2011-09-05T02:00:01.879Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:7824 Employability and labour under-utilization in non-metropolitan labour markets, Regional Studies. This paper addresses labour under-utilization and considers the factors that are associated with under-utilization risk of individuals embedded in diverse non-metropolitan labour market regions. Taking survey and census data for Australian nonmetropolitan regions, this paper applies a broad employability framework that presents the risk of under-utilization as a function of individual characteristics, personal circumstances, and labour market characteristics. The analysis finds that under-utilization is associated with individual characteristics and circumstances plus local labour market conditions. The findings indicate that policy designed to address labour under-utilization needs to focus on the outcomes of a multilevel framework in order to be effective. 2011-06-02T22:30:02.043Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:3106 There are many differences between the cities and their counterparts for the motivations and the transitions of the jobs. This paper attempts to extend these findings using four waves of Household Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) data, to examine whether cities do promote greater levels of mobility and whether primary and secondary labour market participants display different patterns of search and occupational transition in urban areas. 2010-04-27T06:29:55.794Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:1582 This article compares trends and issues affecting labour security in the UK and Australia, using an adaptation of Standing's 1997 typology. The increased polarization and variability of hours worked, declining union densities and increased wage inequality provide evidence of growing labour insecurity in both countries. This represents the reciprocal impact of increased employer dominance in the workplace and government pursuit of labour flexibility. Growing labour insecurity casts doubts on the supposed benefits for EU economies of the Anglo-Saxon model of deregulated labour markets. The last part of the article considers measures to counter increased insecurity. 2010-04-27T06:26:35.506Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:822 Despite Australia enjoying unprecedented growth since the early 1990s, pockets of socio-demographic and regional disadvantage persist. Studies of disadvantaged workers often focus on regions experiencing employment decline; this paper instead explores how disadvantaged workers have fared in the expanding labour markets. How much do workers at the bottom of the labour market benefit from employment growth? Are policies that focus on the delivery of employment growth sufficient for determining labour market outcomes, or is continuing disadvantage a reflection of personal characteristics? At the aggregate level, high growth regions appear to have more equitable rates of growth across occupations relative to low or medium growth regions. However growth in the late 1990s has not significantly altered the structure of labour market disadvantage and the gap in the relative probabilities of unemployment between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged participants persists. This is particularly so for labour market participants with low English proficiency, in state housing, renting and non-metropolitan Australians, and the trend is more pronounced amongst females. 2010-04-27T06:23:22.660Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:5549 Cities are said to have afforded workers higher earnings and greater opportunity to appropriate productivity gains through job mobility. The flipside of flexibility is perhaps more insecurity, associated with casualisation and intense competition for low-skilled positions. This article examines whether cities do promote greater levels of mobility and whether workers in the primary and secondary segments display different patterns of job transition in urban vs. non-urban areas. We find evidence of higher job mobility in urban areas associated with both increased confidence that search will locate a new job and heightened fear of losing one's current job. Controlling for other factors, confidence (linked to upward job mobility), is higher in the primary segment of urban labour markets, but so is fear of losing one's job (linked to downward job mobility). Thus, the primary labour market of urban areas may be particularly susceptible to the adverse dynamics associated with increased mobility. 2010-04-27T04:46:06.070Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:5527 Despite a significant period of strong economic and jobs growth nationally, there is well-established evidence in Australia that the proceeds of this growth have not been shared equally, either between places or between individuals. Empirically, it is well known that particular socioeconomic groups have a higher risk of unemployment and it has become equally well established that there are particular geographic patterns of labour market disadvantage that suggest that local geographic context is also important. What is not well understood are the ways in which phenomena at the geographic level are associated with individual-level characteristics and other social contexts in ways that negatively impact on a range of social outcomes, including unemployment. The present paper specifically addresses this issue by using a multi-scalar approach and using survey data from the Housing, Income and Labour Force Dynamics Australia (HILDA) survey and aggregate level census data to model unemployment risk. The paper argues that to better understand unemployment and to add to sound policy development, approaches that incorporate a variety of contexts, including the impact of local geographies, are important. 2010-04-27T04:43:12.954Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:5294 This paper provides an overview of recent developments in rural labour markets in Bangladesh and also examines the trends and movements of agricultural productivity and real wages with annual data for the period 1950-2006. The paper links the movements of agricultural real wages to macroeconomic developments in general and agricultural development in particular. As part of empirical investigation, the paper develops a simple model of agricultural real wages that depend on agricultural productivity. In order to examine the long-run relationship between agricultural productivity and real wages, the paper applies the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds testing approach. Empirical results suggest that there exists a long-run relationship between agricultural productivity and real wages, and that agricultural productivity can be treated as a long-run forcing variable in explaining agricultural real wages. In the dynamic specification of real wages, the coefficient on one-period lagged error-correction term bears the expected negative sign and is significant. The forecasting ability of the error correction model is satisfactory with respect to the level or the percentage change of real wages. The overall results are consistent with the findings of earlier studies that agricultural productivity is a key determinant of real wages in Bangladesh. 2010-04-27T04:33:18.189Z ]]>