World of Work Report 2012: Better Jobs for a Better Economy

[Excerpt] The World of Work Report 2012 provides a comprehensive analysis of recent labour market and social trends, assesses risks of social unrest and presents employment projections for the next five years. The report emphasizes that while employment has begun to recover slowly, job quality is deteriorating and there is a growing sense of unfairness. Moreover, given the pressure on governments to rein in expenditure, policy efforts have focused on structural reforms to boost employment creation. However, if policy instruments are not carefully designed, they could exacerbate the employment situation and aggravate further equity concerns, with potentially long-lasting adverse consequences for both the economy and society. The report addresses the following questions: • To what extent has the slow recovery aggravated social conditions, including falling incomes, deepening poverty and worsening inequality? • Have countries gone too far, too fast with fiscal consolidation? How should they support recovery while meeting fiscal goals in the medium term? • What can be expected from recent labour market reforms? • How can investment be boosted so as to ensure a long-lasting recovery in both the economy and jobs? • What have been the barriers to implementing a more job-centred and equity-enhancing policy approach? Why has the business-as-usual scenario maintained its centrality despite the increasing risk of social unrest? This report calls for a carefully designed policy approach that takes into consideration the urgent need to create quality jobs while at the same time laying the ground for a more productive, fairer economy and labour market

Making Migration a Development Factor: The Case of North and West Africa

[Excerpt] Although there are multiple “push” and “pull” motivations to migrate (e.g. cultural, family reunification, social conflict, etc.), economic reasons, notably the search for better jobs and decent incomes, remain central to the decision. This report presents novel evidence in this respect, namely: -- female migrant workers from Morocco residing in France earn 16 times more than the average earnings of women in Morocco (for men, the figure is close to 6 times); -- Algerian and Tunisian migrant workers earn between 3.4 and 8 times the average earnings in their country of origin; and, -- in Spain, migrant workers from Morocco earn between 4.5 and 10.5 times the average earnings of men and women, respectively, in Morocco. Migration can be a positive factor in the development of countries of origin, notably through two main channels: remittances and return migration. Remittances are an important source of financial flows to the region, having tripled since 1990 to reach over US$12 billion in 2008. For Morocco and Senegal, this amounts to 8 per cent or more of GDP. These financial flows can assist development directly by sustaining incomes in the countries of origin, and indirectly to the extent that remittances help to support education, infrastructure and investment in the private sector. As a result of the global crisis, remittances to the region only grew by just over 4 per cent in 2008, compared to over 23 per cent in 2007, and they fell by an estimated 10 per cent in 2009. This decline is more pronounced than in other developing regions, where the estimated decline in remittances is around 6 per cent. Similarly, the return of migrants can contribute to development through the promotion, mobilization and utilization of productive resources. Many return having gained valuable experience and knowledge through the migration process. Some returnees invest savings accumulated abroad and engage in entrepreneurial activities, with significant multiplier effects. In practice, however, evidence with respect to the link between remittances and return migration on the one hand and development on the other is weak. The report finds that between two-thirds and three-quarters of remittances to North and West Africa are destined for either the spouse/partner or parent, with the bulk of remittances used to support household subsistence. This financial inflow directly supports the living standards of migrants\u27 families and their communities. But the broader multiplier effects on employment and the economy are limited in the countries under review

Risk, responsibilities and rights: reassessing the ‘economic causes of crime’ thesis in a recession

This paper explores competing accounts of an apparent inversion of the previously-prevailing relationship between young people's unemployment and the incidence of youth offending at a time of economic recession. It begins by highlighting the faltering association between unemployment and offending, and considers the paradoxical implications for risk-based methodologies in youth justice practice. The paper then assesses explanations for the changing relationship that suggest that youth justice policies have successfully broken the unemployment-offending link; and alternatively that delayed effects of recession have yet to materialise, by reference to the work of four Inter-governmental organisations and to youth protests beyond the UK. In place of ever more intensive risk analyses, the paper then focusses on the adverse effects of unemployment on social cohesion, and proposes a rights-based approach to youth justice that recognises the growing disjuncture between the rights afforded to young people and the responsibilities expected of them

The state and class discipline: European labour market policy after the financial crisis

This paper looks at two related labour market policies that have persisted and even proliferated across Europe both before and after the financial crisis: wage restraint, and punitive workfare programmes. It asks why these policies, despite their weak empirical records, have been so durable. Moving beyond comparative-institutionalist explanations which emphasise institutional stickiness, it draws on Marxist and Kaleckian ideas around the concept of ‘class discipline’. It argues that under financialisation, the need for states to implement policies that discipline the working class is intensified, even if these policies do little to enable (and may even counteract) future stability. Wage restraint and punitive active labour market policies are two examples of such measures. Moreover, this disciplinary impetus has subverted and marginalised regulatory labour market institutions, rather than being embedded within them

World of Work Report 2008: Income Inequalities in the Age of Financial Globalization

[Excerpt] Since 2007, the world of work has been hit by a number of global developments, in particular financial turmoil, rising food prices and a shortage of raw materials. This has brought an end to the rapid growth and strong employment performance exhibited by the world economy almost uninterruptedly since the mid-1990s. Looking forward, a critical issue is the extent to which the current financial crisis and slowdown in the world economy may aff ect disproportionately low-income groups. This is all the more relevant given that, as this chapter will show, during the high-growth period, income inequality increased in the majority of countries, which may in turn damage the social fabric.world08.pdf: 311 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Against disengagement: non-participation as an object of governance

The discourse of disengagement has achieved ascendancy just as young people’s employment prospects have declined – in many countries to crisis levels. Conceptualising and interpreting young people’s non-particiapiton in dominant modes of education, training and employment has been a preoccupation of academics, policy-makers and journalists. This paper offers a critical analysis of the discourse of disengagement. It queries the primacy of particiapiton as the dominant policy response to mass youth unemployment, identifies some paradoxes of this policy priority, and locates them within a political-economic analysis of youth unemployment. It proposes a view of prevailing policy responses as a mode of governance of problematised populations of young ‘non-participants’. By juxtaposing two ostensibly incompatible analytical frameworks, the paper draws attention to some potentially illuminating tensions between materialist and governmentalist analyses of dominant policy responses to ‘disengagement’, and considers how these might be exploited in researching and re-conceptualising non-participation