The Youth Labour Market in Australia - Implications From Work Choices Legislation

The youth labour market, comprising the age subgroups 15-19 and 20-24 years, forms a unique segment of the Australian labour market. The issue of youth employment has received attention most recently in 2005 in relation to industrial relations reforms (Work Choices legislation). Because of their relative inexperience, youth are seen as particularly vulnerable and in a weak bargaining position in the case of increasing prevalence of individual bargaining. We start with a review of the labour market for youth in 2005 for males and females compared to prime aged (25-44 years). We then explore specific features of youth employment such as industry representation, earnings and trade union membership, compared to the prime aged group. These results are then assessed in the light of industrial relations reforms in the Work Choices legislation.Youth labour market, Work Choices legislation, industrial relations reforms

Exploring Older Male Worker Labour Force Participation Across OECD Countries in the Context of Ageing Populations: A Reserve Army of Labour?

The governments of many developed economies are confronting a number of policy issues associated with ageing populations. For example, pension reforms, increasing the labour force participation of older workers and increasing the standard retirement age are various policy reforms suggested by the OECD to cope with the fiscal strain associated with ageing populations. However, many of the same governments now embracing these reforms had until recent times allowed the early exit of older workers from the labour force by various means in periods of excess labour supply, leading to the allegation that these governments had treated older workers as a ‘reserve army of labour’. In this paper panel models for the labour force participation of males aged 55-59 and 60-64 years in 12 OECD countries are estimated as a function of social security and labour market variables covering the time period 1967 to 2007. In contrast to previous OECD modelling, allowances are made for both country specific intercept and slope terms in various specifications, thereby allowing the incorporation of unique aspects of each country’s social security system or labour market. In addition, both long run models and also short run models incorporating error correction terms are estimated. The findings suggest that the ‘one size fits all’ policy advocated by the OECD is inadequate to address country specific factors affecting older worker labour force participation. The recent pension reforms are now out of character with the reserve army of labour explanation and results also imply that governments in many OECD countries will struggle to increase older male labour force participation through pension policy reform alone, without addressing the important role of the aggregate labour market.Labour force participation, older workers, ageing society, reserve army of labour

Hidden Unemployment and Older Male Workers

A number of policy reforms have recently been announced by the Commonwealth government to encourage greater labour force participation by older people in the context of an ageing society. These policy reforms are generally supply side in orientation such as the removal of the Mature Age Allowance, or restrictions to the Disability Support Pension. In this paper it is argued that these pensions have historically been used to accommodate otherwise unemployed older male workers. A number of methods are used to quantify the level of hidden unemployment within the older male population over recent decades. Estimates of adjusted unemployment rates, which include hidden as well as official unemployment, reveal a very dramatic picture of unutilised older male labour beneath relatively modest official unemployment rates. It is argued that without complementary employment policy addressing the labour demand side these policy reforms will achieve little except to reveal the previously high levels of hidden unemployment in official unemployment statistics.hidden unemployment, older male workers, employment policy

Older Male Workers and Job Mobility in Australia

Extending the working life of older workers has been identified as an important policy goal in the context of an ageing society. However, existing research has highlighted the role of job separation and labour force discouragement for older worker labour force outcomes. In contrast, research of older worker job mobility is scant except that it has been established that older workers have lower job mobility rates than younger workers. This paper addresses this void through an analysis of ABS Labour Mobility Survey data. Findings have important implications for the Federal government's predominantly supply sided policy reforms aimed at older workers.Older male workers, job mobility, Australia

Trends in the Irish Credit and Deposits Markets: A New Presentation

This paper introduces the new Trends in Business Credit and Deposits and Trends in Personal Credit and Deposits statistical series first published by the Central Bank of Ireland in June 2011.

Some Further Results on the Impact of Migrants on Trade

This paper investigates the relationship between migration and trade. Specifically it adds to the existing literature by allowing for the endogeneity of migration, as predicted by theory, while also allowing for the relationship between trade and migration to be non-linear. In contrast to previous single country studies this paper utilises a large cross section dataset for 26 countries and their trading partners.DYNREG, International Migration, International Trade, Gravity Model

Irish Money and Banking Statistics: A New Approach

The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) recently undertook a complete review of the Monthly Statistics publication and this culminated in a new framework for the publication of the national banking statistics released in July 2010 as Money and Banking Statistics. The aim of this paper is to provide users with an overview of the new structure, the concepts employed and motivation behind the review.

Recognition of finite exceptional groups of Lie type

Let $q$ be a prime power and let $G$ be an absolutely irreducible subgroup of $GL_d(F)$, where $F$ is a finite field of the same characteristic as \F_q, the field of $q$ elements. Assume that $G \cong G(q)$, a quasisimple group of exceptional Lie type over \F_q which is neither a Suzuki nor a Ree group. We present a Las Vegas algorithm that constructs an isomorphism from $G$ to the standard copy of $G(q)$. If $G \not\cong {}^3 D_4(q)$ with $q$ even, then the algorithm runs in polynomial time, subject to the existence of a discrete log oracle