This paper investigates how interest groups in France and Germany communicate information about Industry 4.0 technologies and approaches. Specifically, this explanatory study employs cutting-edge big-data-type tools and machine-based automatic text processing to delve into the topics, arguments, and postulates related to Industry 4.0 strategies by trade unions and employers’ organisations. The goal is to determine which of these factors have been pivotal in shaping social dialogue in France and Germany. The findings reveal that social partners in both countries are involved in similar digitalisation-related initiatives and express predominantly favourable viewpoints regarding Industry 4.0 technologies. Key themes in the dialogues of both France and Germany centre around workers’ rights, working conditions, and skills training.

This study utilises panel data of 46 countries from 2005 to 2019 to examine the impact of digital service trade (DST) on inclusive growth. Inclusive growth is a growth model that promotes economic growth and development, while also building social equity and inclusiveness and balancing environmental sustainability. The findings indicate that a nation’s DST development significantly fosters domestic economic growth and development, specifically through its employment enhancement effect. DST substantially promotes social equity and inclusiveness, mainly through the inclusive innovation effect. However, DST is also found to increase carbon emissions, impeding environmentally sustainable growth, specifically via the energy demand effect. Hence, DST exerts diverse impacts on different facets of inclusiveness. The study also reveals heterogeneity in the effects of DST on the three aspects of inclusive growth related to trade’s import–export dynamics, income levels, and DST barrier intensities. This paper contributes to and refines the body of research on the relationship between DST and inclusive growth. It offers policy suggestions for crafting more open and mutually beneficial DST policies to foster social equity and inclusive global trade.

In recent decades, there has been a global growth of the use of contract labour in the mining industry, primarily driven by cost/flexibility considerations. At the same time, contracting has been associated with poorer occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes across a range of industries. Drawing on published research, theses, and government reports, this paper critically reviews the available evidence on the OHS effects of contract labour in mining and the likely implications of further growth in this trend. This evidence confirms that the use of contract labour is associated with worse OHS outcomes, and that the Ten Pathways and Pressure, Disorganisation, and Regulatory failure (PDR) models are both valuable in explaining this. The latter point is confirmed by a more detailed examination of four serious mine incidents in NSW and Queensland. The paper identifies some gaps and areas for further research as well as the actions that mining companies, regulators, and unions could take to improve contractor safety. Notwithstanding the latter, the paper argues that the most effective way of improving contractor safety in mines is reducing the use of contractors overall and concentrating their activities in areas such as major shutdowns/repairs, where contractors have specialised expertise to undertake non-routine tasks. Despite oft-repeated phrases such as zero-harm and management systems, the corporate shift to using contractors is primarily driven by cost-cutting and highlights how OHS is compromised by such priorities.

Much has been made about the impact of new technologies on the organisation of work in the professions. However, the gendered effect of technological change has rarely been a focus of investigation, even though these transformations are occurring in a context of persistent and pervasive gendered inequality. This paper aims to address this gap, using the case of the legal profession to understand the gendered impact of technological change. Drawing on insights developed through interviews with 33 senior legal stakeholders, the paper finds that technological change plays out in contradictory ways, offering both promise and peril for gender equality within the legal profession. We identify four key concepts – bifurcation, democratisation, humanisation, and flexibilisation – to elucidate the intricate interplay between technology and gendered legal careers, acknowledging the dual potential that technology holds for advancement and adversity. We argue for proactive measures and strategies to be adopted by legal institutions, professional associations, and employers, to harness the benefits of new technologies while mitigating the very real risks such technologies pose to a more gender-equitable future of work.

Understanding gender disparities in home-based self-employment (HBS) and their links to homeownership and socioeconomic factors is crucial for advancing sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Nigeria. This study uses data from the 2010/2011, 2012/13, 2015/16, and 2018/19 waves of the Nigerian General Household Survey (GHS). It employs random effect probit regression, the LASSO method for identifying predictors, and the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique to analyse gender differences in nonlinear binary outcomes. The results show that female business owners are more likely to engage in HBS compared to males, highlighting the importance of gender equality (SDG 5) and decent work (SDG 8). While male entrepreneurs are mainly driven by profit, females prioritise balancing paid and unpaid work, reflecting motivations beyond profit within heterodox economics. Significant gender-differentiated impacts are observed in relation to monthly rent, post-secondary education, dwelling space, energy, and regional locations. Notably, the presence of children significantly increases female involvement in HBS, a trend not seen among males. Marriage also influences female participation, suggesting that marital circumstances and economic benefits play a role. These findings highlight the need for policies addressing gender-specific constraints, challenging traditional gender roles, and promoting inclusive human development within the SDG framework.

This study examines the influence of bullying at work on self-rated anxiety (SRA) across 19 European countries through the European Working Conditions Survey (2015 and 2021). Descriptive analysis highlights a significantly higher prevalence of bullying among women compared to men. The econometric analysis uncovers that the detrimental impact of bullying is particularly pronounced in environments characterised by higher gender inequality. Gender differences are more prominent in countries where women face lower economic participation and opportunities. However, the frequency of reported bullying is higher in the group of countries where conditions for women are more equal. The apparent lack of awareness regarding these abusive behaviours would feasibly result in a lack of specific legislation and consequently generate a greater impact on SRA, even though the issue seems less prominent.

Since the publication of Keynes General Theory in 1936 when Keynes developed an original Finance Circuit model which was subsequently enriched by the post-Keynesian theory of endogenous money supply, no study has undertaken Keynes Finance Circuit model complete causality tests. The present paper breaks new ground and aims at filling the above lacuna by employing Granger non-causality test for heterogeneous panel data models to investigate the above model based on a sample of 32 African countries, for the period from 1990 to 2021. Our results lend support to the complete Keynes Finance Circuit model in the short run. In the long run, all causalities are vindicated except the causal relationship running from economic growth to savings which appears insignificant. In terms of policy implication, we are encouraging policymakers to design policies that will stimulate economic growth within a post-Keynesian endogenous money supply framework.

The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently incorporated driver pay into its guidelines on the promotion of safe and decent work in road transport. ILO guideline 73 states that ‘the remuneration of … CMV [commercial motor vehicle] drivers should be sustainable and take into consideration the attractiveness and sustainability of the industry’. In the spirit of this, we explore the relationship between truck drivers’ relative income and intrastate motor carrier safety performance. We utilise the United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage data for heavy and tractor-trailer truck driver median annual incomes and the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates of median household incomes to construct county level relative income ratios for truck drivers. This information is merged with public safety data to analyse the relationship between truck drivers’ relative pay and motor carrier safety performance. We find that, all else constant, carriers located in counties where driver earnings are relatively high tend to experience fewer crashes. This provides evidence that safety performance is better when driver pay is more attractive in the truck driver labour market and, consequently, validates the ILO’s assertion under guideline 73.

Work-related stress is a major occupational health and safety (OHS) issue that has industrial relations origins. Aside from the moral and human rights imperatives to improve the corporate climate for worker psychological health (as per psychosocial safety climate, PSC), there are strong economic costs for not doing so. PSC refers to worker perceptions of the corporate safety system to protect and promote workers’ psychological health and wellbeing. It is a leading indicator of working conditions, which in turn affect workers’ health and work engagement. In this study, we estimate the attributable economic cost of low PSC due to sickness absence and turnover. Data were collected from a multinational company using survey at Time 1 (T1) and objective company data (i.e., sickness absence and turnover) after one year (T2). Using regression analysis and a matched sample of 617 responses, PSC was negatively related to future sickness absence. A binomial logistic regression with 1268 respondents (i.e., all responses at T1) showed that PSC was negatively related to future voluntary turnover. An economic analysis suggests that improving OHS via PSC could save an organisation with 5000 employees USD 0.6–2.7 million per year. Building PSC to protect and promote workers’ psychological health is a likely economic saving on organisational productivity.

This article studies the association between the characteristics of individuals’ social networks and expectations of career advancement, including pay raises and job promotions. The literature has extensively documented the role of social capital as a determinant of labour market outcomes. However, the formation of expectations constitutes another critical path by which social ties may affect work through their influence on individual motivation and behaviour. This study attempts to explain the relationship between social capital and career-related expectations and empirically assesses these associations by employing data from a survey administered to a representative sample of the Spanish population. Our findings suggest that the ability to mobilise network resources is positively linked with both measures of career advancement. However, access to the upper class is only positively associated with expecting a pay rise. Additionally, for non-employed individuals, higher mobilisation is positively associated with the expectation of an increase in income.

The construction industry is experiencing high demand for workers. Apprenticeship programmes are essential pipelines of skilled workers into the construction industry; however, apprenticeship completion rates are only around 25%. To promote apprenticeship retention and increase the number of apprentices, it is necessary to identify factors that relate to cancellation from apprenticeship programmes (i.e., leaving prior to programme completion). Using data from the Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System, we descriptively characterised completion and cancellation, then conducted a time-to-event analysis of n = 335,212 construction apprentices from 2012 to 2023 to examine factors related to cancellation. Among all apprentices, 40.1% cancelled from their apprenticeship programmes, while 24.8% completed and 35.0% were actively registered at the end of the study period. Results from the time-to-event analysis show females had significantly higher odds of cancellation than males (OR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.15). Compared to White apprentices, American Indian/Alaska Native (OR: 1.13; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.18), Black/African American (OR: 1.41; 95% CI: 1.39, 1.44), and multiracial apprentices (OR: 1.09; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.17) had significantly higher odds of cancellation, while Asian apprentices had significantly lower odds of cancellation (OR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.75, 0.83). Non-unionised workers were significantly more likely to cancel their apprenticeship programmes (OR: 1.77; 95% CI: 1.74, 1.80). These results indicate that individual demographic and organisational factors can influence apprenticeship cancellation. Reducing barriers to apprenticeship completion can help address the current skilled worker shortage, and identifying factors that impact entry into the industry for minoritised groups can promote equity within the industry.

Digital technology has enormous potential in rural revitalisation, thus providing impetus for improving the well-being of rural residents in underdeveloped areas. This study takes the policies of e-commerce in rural areas as an intervention in the development of e-commerce. It uses the panel data from 321 counties in the old revolutionary areas of China from 2003 to 2020 to empirically explore the impact of e-commerce development on the income of rural residents. Results show that e-commerce significantly improves the income and well-being of rural residents in old revolutionary areas. Propensity score matching and entropy balance matching are used to overcome group differences in covariate features, and the estimation results are consistently robust. In terms of mechanisms, e-commerce development increases per capita income in old revolutionary areas by promoting three aspects significantly: agricultural revitalisation, non-agricultural employment, and government support efforts. On the other hand, the heterogeneity analysis shows that e-commerce plays a diminishing role in increasing income in the eastern, central, and western regions.

The Korean ‘Safe Trucking Freight Rates System’ (‘Safe Rates System’) was an important effort to address road safety risks by regulating road transport supply chains. In effect between 2020 and 2022, the system set minimum standards for truck driver pay and placed obligations on road transport supply chain parties to comply with these standards. In this article, we explain how the system developed in response to the deregulation and restructuring of the road freight market in the late 1980s and 1990s. We also trace the influence on the system of regulatory development in Australia and debates at the International Labour Organization (ILO). In 2019, workers, employers, and government representatives at the ILO reached an agreement on the main principles of the Safe Rates regulatory model through the adoption of the Guidelines on the promotion of decent work and road safety in the transport sector. We use these principles to explain and evaluate the Korean system. We also summarise assessments of the system’s impact, arguing that the results of the few studies that exist, justify the continuation of the system. By locating Korean Safe Rates as part of a broader global trend, we respond to opponents’ claims that the system is without international precedent and make the system eligible for a global audience. In so doing, we seek to contribute to the ongoing debate about the reintroduction of Safe Rates in Korea and draw lessons from the Korean experience that may be used in other countries.

Cascading employment is an increasingly prevalent yet understudied form of employment arrangement, where an employer places a worker in a client’s workplace through a sequence of labour intermediaries, with no direct contractual relationship between the worker’s employer and the end client. In this article, cascading employment is conceptualised as a distinct and normalised form of precarious work and differs from ‘triangular employment’ in several dimensions. The study reported herein draws on interviews with U.S.-based IT workers and stakeholders engaged in cascading employment. Findings reveal three key dimensions of cascading employment: multilayeredness, hierarchical fissuring, and relationship heterogeneity. These dimensions contribute to the aspects of precariousness of employment, including diluted income, heightened employment uncertainty, reduced worker control over working conditions, and limited legal protections. Moreover, the precariousness of cascading employment stems from the complexity of the employment arrangements, not merely from factors such as contract type, employment status, and industry, which are typical in explaining precariousness. Therefore, ‘complexity of employment arrangements’ should be recognised as a crucial criterion for employment precariousness. ‘Complexity’ can be measured by the number of actors involved, the extent of fissuring in employer costs and responsibilities, and the variety and intensity of inter-actor relationships.

This paper explores the (de-)routinisation of employment structure in developing countries, through the case of Morocco. We investigate employment (de-)routinisation from an often-overlooked perspective, aiming to elucidate the interplay between the dynamics of occupational employment composition by the level of routine tasks intensity and two structural aspects: premature deindustrialisation and the prevalence of informal labour.

Our findings, based on tertile analysis and regressions, do not fully support the hypothesis of employment structure de-routinisation. At the same time, we could not identify a clear process of routinisation similar to that observed in developing countries undergoing the first stage of the traditional structural transformation process. Rather, we identified an inverted U-shaped pattern in the dynamics of occupational employment, indicative of a rise in intermediate routine-intensive occupations.

We emphasise two key factors, with opposite effects that have contributed to this atypical pattern: The first aspect is premature deindustrialisation, which according to our shift-share decomposition, has adversely affected highly routine-intensive jobs, contrasting with the routinisation trend observed in countries that have experienced a more traditional process of structural transformation. The influence of premature deindustrialisation in terms of de-routinisation is somewhat mitigated by the increasing prevalence of occupations demanding intermediate routine tasks, particularly within the services and construction sector. Regarding the second structural aspect – the prevalence of informal labour – our three-way interaction model indicates a lower susceptibility of informal jobs to de-routinisation compared to their formal counterparts within the same industry. Consequently, the prevalence of informal employment has slowed down the process of de-routinisation of employment structure.

Residential independence and incorporation into the labour market are two fundamental aspects of the transition of young people to adulthood, and gender differences have been observed in both. This study aims to determine the reasons behind the gender gap seen in young adults leaving their parental home and in finding paid employment. We analyse both the decisions of residential independence and employment jointly, for the sample of men and that of women. We separate the influence of observed factors from the influence of unobserved factors or preferences on the gender gap using decomposition techniques. The analysis is carried out for two points in time; this temporal comparison can help demonstrate whether the recent social changes experienced have modified the behaviour patterns of young people. Our findings indicate that, in accordance with the trend observed in recent decades in Europe, there is a convergence between men and women in the residential independence of young adults in Spain. However, in the labour market, there is still much to be done to reduce the gender gap. One recommendation arising from our study would be to promote policies which further improve the conciliation of family and work life, since this could reduce female labour abandonment associated with starting a family or motherhood.

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of skill mismatch on labour turnover, unemployment, and informality, in the case of Colombia. We study Colombia because it is a developing country with one of the highest levels of unemployment and informality in Latin America, along with very restrictive institutions, such as the minimum wage. We found that skill mismatch can explain the high turnover of workers in the Colombian labour market, evident in the increase in hirings and also in separations. Additionally, we find a positive significant effect of skill mismatch on the levels of informality, but no significant effect on unemployment. This evidence remains even once we consider the role of labour market institutions such as minimum wage and non-wage labour costs.

This study investigates the relationship between occupational skills and wages in Thailand using the Labour Force Survey from 1985 to 2020. We quantify the contribution of changes in the skill requirement and highlight the increase in the return on the ‘brain’ and the decrease in the penalty on ‘brawn’, which helps explain the wage distribution changes across periods. We further explore the polarisation in the labour market and analyse the changes in the wage distribution by applying the decomposition method proposed by Firpo et al (2009). Our results suggest that wage dispersion increases in the top end over the first two time periods but decreases in the third time period, while it continues to decrease in the lower end of the distribution.

Companies and business lobby groups bemoan a lack of qualified workers, even for entry-level or low-skill jobs. At issue is a stated inability to find workers with the right ‘fit’ for the role or business. But what does fit really mean? We draw on human capital theory and labour segmentation theory to examine how perceptions of fit are shaped. We conducted ninety-three interviews with food service workers, managers, and other industry stakeholders and found that employment decisions are shaped by stereotypes, with a particular focus on ‘pretty privilege’ or aesthetic labour, as well as Indigeneity, citizenship, race, and gender. We present implications for research and practice in the food services industry.

In the context of big data, the rise of digital inclusive finance is driving the digital transformation of various industries, which in turn, has a profound impact on labour employment. Based on the panel data of 258 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2021, this article evaluates the impact of digital financial inclusion on the employment structure of the labour force and investigates its spatial spillover effects by constructing a spatial Durbin model and a mediation model. The study finds that: (1) Digital financial inclusion increases the employment demand for high-skilled and low-skilled labour and decreases the employment demand for middle-skilled labour, that is, the employment structure of the labour force shows a polarisation trend. (2) There is a positive spatial spillover effect of the impact of the development of digital financial inclusion on the demand for high- and low-skilled labour. (3) Financial digitisation plays an intermediary role in the process of digital financial inclusion affecting the employment structure of the labour force. Taking advantage of the dividends brought about by the development of digital inclusive finance and formulating policies according to the actual situation of each region indicate an undeniable choice for achieving full employment.