This paper offers evidence on the relationship between the minimum wage and unemployment and informal employment, and identifies some of the lessons learned on the potential effects of increasing the minimum wage.
... See More + Most of the evidence suggests that sizable increases in the minimum wage are likely to exacerbate unemployment and the prevalence of informal employment, which could have negative consequences for labor productivity and businesses as a result of reduced investment in employee training and loss of productive workers. This outcome occurs when businesses adopt the main channels available for absorbing increased labor costs. The majority of the empirical evidence suggests that the effects of minimum wage increases on unemployment and the demand for labor are unclear. The outcome depends in large part on the specific characteristics of the labor markets and the degree of compliance with the minimum wage law. Most of those affected by minimum wage increases are less qualified workers. In Latin American and Asia, differences in the effects of minimum wage increases depend largely on the size and type of firms. In countries with high levels of informal employment, minimum wage increases can increase informal employment, since the formal workers who lose their jobs are absorbed by the informal sector of the economy. In general, businesses have five mechanisms for absorbing the added labor costs. Given the characteristics of the labor market in emerging economies, it is likely that businesses faced with increased labor costs will resort to less than optimal channels, which will tend to affect their productivity and the labor market in general.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8030 APR 18, 2017
Del Carpio,Ximena Vanessa; Pabon,Laura M.Disclosed
Many policy instruments can be used to address or affect child labor, even if they are implemented to achieve other objectives. From a theoretical point of view, however, the impact of these policies on child labor is undetermined.
... See More + This paper discusses the evidence generated by rigorous evaluations on the impact on child labor of labor market programs, conditional and unconditional transfers, and microcredit, among other social programs and interventions. The study finds that although transfer programs generally tend to reduce child labor, other policies risk increasing child labor, especially if they affect households' productive opportunities. The findings also point to knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future evaluations. While progress has been made over the past decade, there is still much to learn about the effects of public policy on the labor participation of many children in developing countries.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7999 MAR 07, 2017
Dammert,Ana C.; De Hoop,Jacobus Joost; Mvukiyehe,Eric; Rosati,Furio CamilloDisclosed
This report summarizes the challenges facing Armenian women at school and in the workplace with a special focus on STEM-related employment. As the world transitions to an increasingly digital economy, jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) will become a powerful driver of economic growth in the twenty-first century.
... See More + Changes in economic productivity brought through technological innovation require countries to focus on STEM; these high-productivity fields are increasingly in demand in the global economy, and are the key to competitiveness and gross domestic product (GDP) growth.Parity between men and women was one of the major achievements of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Cultural stereotypes about the types of work women should engage in and their responsibilities at home present the strongest barrier to equality between women and men in Armenia Asia. Although access, enrolment, and achievement rates are gender-equal in Armenia, women and girls tend to self-select out of STEM education tracks and career fields. At the level of education institutions, policy actions can address issues of access, information, biases, and system-wide changes to promote gender neutrality. In the short term, schools can engage teachers and students in discussions about the benefits of STEM fields of study and careers, encourage girls to embrace their interest in math and science, and provide positive role models of women who work in STEM careers. Policy action can help women make the school-to-work transition and promote their career advancement once they are working. At a national level, policy and regulatory actions can address systemic issues of bias, market failure, and information. Even at this level, some quick wins are feasible. The government may consider whether public information campaigns are needed to promote positive aspects of STEM careers to students in middle school and above, such as greater income, flexibility, and status, as well as launch a media campaign to promote and celebrate positive female role models in STEM. STEM sectors are an important source of growth for Armenia given the country’s geography and closed borders. Also, considering Armenia’s adverse demographic trends, lifting women’s participation in key growth potential sectors, including STEM, is increasingly critical.
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For the last 50 years, the Turkish Cypriot community (TCc) has remained outside the effective control of the government of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC).
... See More + The community displays typical characteristics and challenges of a small island economy, and after years of rapid growth and income convergence, it is unlikely to replicate its pre-2009 economic performance in the medium term. Sound macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, thus, become all the more crucial if the community is to regain the growth momentum of the early-2000s and address some of the labor market issues. Structural reforms should, among other things, aim to remove barriers to an expanding private sector, and strengthen domestic and external market competitiveness. To do this, the Turkish Cypriot community needs to better align its workforce and Workforce Development (WfD) policies to the needs of the labor market and of the private sector in particular.This study aims to assess the TCc’s overall WfD system. Where shortcomings are identified, the study offers suggestions on how to improve the quality and relevance of the skills produced by the community’s workforce system, including Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at the secondary and postsecondary level, and on-the-job learning. This report presents a comprehensive diagnostic of a WfD system’s policies and institutions.
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This is the first study to investigate the short- and long-term causal effects of a child-labor ban. The study explores the law that increased the minimum employment age from 14 to 16 in Brazil in 1998, and uncovers its impact on time allocated to schooling and work in the short term and on school attainment and labor market outcomes in the long term.
... See More + The analysis uses cross-sectional data from 1998 to 2014, and applies a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of the ban at different points of individuals’ lifecycles. The estimates show that the ban reduced the incidence of boys in paid work activities by 4 percentage points or 27 percent. The study finds that the fall in child labor is mostly explained by the change in the proportions of boys working for pay and studying, and observes an increase in the proportion of boys only studying as a consequence. The results suggest that the ban reduced boys’ participation in the labor force. The study follows the same cohort affected by the ban over the years, and finds that the short-term effects persisted until 2003 when the boys turned 18. The study pooled data from 2007 to 2014 to check whether the ban affected individuals’ stock of human capital and labor market outcomes. The estimates suggest that the ban did not have long-term effects for the whole cohort, but found some indication that it did negatively affect the log earnings of individuals at the lower tail of the earnings distribution.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7796 AUG 15, 2016
Piza,Caio; Portela Fernandes De Souza,AndreDisclosed
The Kosovo Agency of Statistics (KAS) began conducting the Labor Force Survey (LFS) in 2001 and then undertook LFS on an almost annual basis until 2009.
... See More + In 2011 KAS began planning for the updated Labour Force Survey which has several important improvements over previous surveys. This Labour Force Survey 2015 report contains data on employment and unemployment by age, gender, employment status, economic activities, occupations and other areas of the labour market.The main objectives of LFS are to collect information, mainly on the supply side of the labour market, i.e., information on those who are working or who are actively looking for work. The LFS collects social and economic information for use in the following areas: (i) Macro-economic monitoring; (ii) Human resource development policies; (iii) Employment policies; and (iv) Income support and social programs.
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People in Bihar are beginning to move off the farm and into other kinds of work. That said, the workforce remains largely tied to agriculture, more so than in most other states in the country.
... See More + Though there has been an increase in the number of jobs after 2005, job creation has lagged behind the expansion of the working age population that is not in school. Very few workers have salaried jobs. Very few women work in Bihar. Worse still, women have exited the labor force in large numbers after 2005.
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This paper examines whether export participation matters for job training. The paper draws on longitudinal worker-firm data for Brazilian manufacturing, linked with detailed records on training activity from the main provider.
... See More + The analysis uses industry-specific exchange rate movements to generate exogenous variation in export status at the firm-level. The findings indicate that export participation tends to increase the share of workers who receive technical upgrading. The results also reveal that technical upgrading has positive returns to trainees within exporting firms. These findings support the hypothesis that exporting requires skill upgrading, and suggest that this is partially achieved by training firms' existing workforce.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7676 MAY 16, 2016
Bastos; Silva,Joana C. G.; Proenca,Rafael PradoDisclosed
Over the past 30 years, Vietnam has experienced significant shifts of employment away from agriculture toward manufacturing and services, away from household enterprises toward registered and regulated businesses, and away from state-owned enterprises toward private firms.
... See More + This paper argues that for these processes to continue in the future, appropriately designed and implemented labor market policies need to be in place, including labor market regulations that protect workers but do not inhibit creative destruction and creation of formal sector jobs; labor market interventions that improve workers' human capital, eliminate information asymmetries, and are fiscally sustainable; and labor market institutions that give voice to workers and employers. As a part of all of these measures, Vietnam will also have to renew its efforts to integrate vulnerable groups into the labor market.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7587 MAR 01, 2016
Based on a series of complementary methodological approaches and datasets implicitly linking trade to jobs, this report paints a mixed picture of Lao PDR’s recent export performance and how this has translated into job creation and improved job quality across the economy.
... See More + The findings of these various analytical approaches provide insight into the potential drivers of Lao PDR’s labor outcomes including the role of exports, and what the government and firms can do to better position Lao producers in external markets so that more and better jobs are created for Lao workers in the future. A key obstacle to attracting investment in high-value manufacturing is the Lao labor force’s low schooling levels. Policies likely to have only modest effects on aggregate welfare and inclusive growth. Policies will need to go beyond the manufacturing sector to address the limited employment and demand spillovers of mining production, and the limited market integration and value addition in agricultural production. It was concluded that Policies to enhance agricultural productivity, job quality and economic opportunities in rural areas will not only foster greater equity, but will also reduce urban-rural distortions and dampen the incentives to migrate.
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This study analyzes labor market performance in the Philippines from the perspective of workers’ welfare. It argues that pervasive in-work poverty is the main challenge facing labor policy.
... See More + Poverty is primarily due to low earning capacity of the poor and to their limited access to regular and productive jobs. Behind these are the two interrelated root causes of in-work poverty - low education of the poor, and the scarcity of productive job opportunities. The labor market is segmented into good and bad jobs, with the poor working in the latter. They hold jobs that are informal, temporary or casual, and low-paid. Widespread informality means that the poor neither benefit from the minimum wage policy nor from employment protection legislation. They do not benefit from wage growth either, because their bargaining power is weak. Good jobs are so few, especially in rural areas, that even better educated workers are often forced to take unskilled jobs and work as low-paid laborers. The reduction of in-work poverty hinges on removing constraints to gainful employment in both supply side (better education and skills) and demand side (better jobs). It is critical that the young poor have improved access to quality education, and be equipped with skills required in the modern sector of the economy. But in parallel, better jobs need to be created, which can be attained from the growth of the formal and higher value added sector of the economy. The process of structural transformation should be supported by effective labor policy. Labor regulations need to be made simpler and more flexible to facilitate the reallocation of labor from less to more productive activities, and from informal to formal sector. Targeted training programs have the potential to address the problem of low skills among the poor workers, especially the young ones. Such programs should be developed on a pilot basis and expanded if proven to be cost-effective.
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This paper investigates the occupational mobility and job quality of young people in Indonesia and relates this to the concept of “scarring.” The concept of labor market scarring in this paper is the occurrence of low or zero returns to certain types of work (for example, self-employment).
... See More + Scarring is expected to occur whenever an individual spends periods working in occupations in which their human capital is either stagnant or deteriorating. Fixed effects estimations using panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey reveal that a period in self-employment is associated with negative returns for youth (about 3 to 4 percent per year penalty), but not for older adults. In addition, there are clear patterns of persistence in self-employment over time with few individuals progressing from petty self-employment to businesses with permanent workers.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7484 NOV 09, 2015
The development objectives of the Income Support and Employability Project for El Salvador are to: (i) provide temporary income support to the urban vulnerable poor; (ii) improve the coverage of labor intermediation and training services to the urban vulnerable poor; and (iii) improve the institutional capacity of the Borrower to develop an integrated social protection system.
... See More + This level two restructuring presents the following changes: (i) extend the closing date of the project from December 31, 2015, to August 31, 2016, which represents 20 months after the original closing date; and (ii) reallocate resources across disbursement categories. The main rationale for the changes is to ensure continuation and implementation of key activities that are aligned with the new Government flagship youth employment strategy (programa de empleo y empleabilidad joven). The implementation of these activities will also allow continuity and preparation of a new project in El Salvador with the Bank.
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This report on the Study of social public spending and institutions in El Salvador: education, health, social protection and employment claims that development of El Salvador in the last decade has been two-fold.
... See More + On the one hand, economic growth has remained persistently low, work and participation in the workforce have barely increased and progress in poverty reduction has slowed. On the other hand, inequality has decreased and shared prosperity has improved with progress on many social fronts, such as rates of preschool enrollment, access to prenatal care, vaccinations, and water and sanitation indicators.
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After the global economic crisis hit, economic growth slowed down significantly and persistently in Albania, linked to the Eurozone crisis and particularly to the economic performance of Greece and Italy.
... See More + The labor market has suffered during the economic downturn and has adjusted mainly through job loss instead of wages. As a result, as an accompanying poverty analysis shows, the downward trends in poverty reduction halted, and the loss of jobs was a key factor behind unfavorable poverty trends. To resume its trend of poverty reduction and shared prosperity, the country needs to accelerate growth and boost job creation. The recent Albania systematic country diagnostic (SCD) shows that the domestic-driven growth model of the 2000s is exhausted and has led to household vulnerability and to macroeconomic imbalances. This note presents an overview of the Albanian labor market, and initial insights into the challenges for inclusive and better quality jobs. By employing the regional report’s framework, the note can guide the government, development partners, civil society, and other stakeholders in identifying the many knowledge gaps that remain for a comprehensive jobs agenda and the work needed towards completing the picture. The note is organized as follows; part one presents some of the key challenges of labor markets in Albania, looking into main labor market outcomes, and key characteristics of employment in Albania. Part two explores some of the potential factors behind the observed labor market outcomes related to labor market institutions and human capital, particularly to disincentives to (formal) work from taxes and social protection systems, skills and barriers to work affecting some specific groups.
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The development objective of the Innovation Entrepreneurship Venture Capital Project for Croatia is to strengthen risk capital financing for innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups.
... See More + Negative impacts include: waste, noise pollution, water pollution, asbestos management, waste management, soil erosion, dust, and air quality. Mitigation measures include: construction noise will be limited to restricted times agreed to in the permit; during operations the engine covers of generators, air compressors and other powered mechanical equipment should be closed, and equipment placed as far away from residential areas as possible; Suppress dust during pneumatic drilling/wall destruction by ongoing water spraying and/or installing dust screen enclosures at site; keep surrounding environment (sidewalks, roads) free of debris to minimize dust; when possible the asbestos will be appropriately contained and sealed to minimize exposure; and the asbestos prior to removal (if removal is necessary) will be treated with a wetting agent to minimize asbestos dust; the containers of hazardous substances should be placed in an leak-proof container to prevent spillage and leaching; and before being discharged into receiving waters, effluents from individual wastewater systems must be treated in order to meet the minimal quality criteria set out by national guidelines on effluent quality and wastewater treatment.
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