workforce

The author examines the determinants of inter-state migration of adults within western Germany, using the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984-2000. Same-employer migrants represent one fifth of all migrants higher education and pre-move wages than non-migrants.

Against the backdrop of concerns about the slow down in the growth of total work force in the 1990s (relative to the 1980s) and of “jobless growth”, the paper offers a more nuanced assessment of the growth of different types of employment opportunities.

Using OECD unemployment data, the authors infer the nature of unemployment shocks using factor analysis. Findings indicate that two principal
components can account for a large part of the variance of unemployment between and within countries.

The Milken Institute Best Performing Cities index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas based upon their economic performance and their ability to create, as well as keep, the greatest number of jobs in the nation. The top large metro on this years list is Fort Myers, Florida, one of seven Florida metros on the top 20. The top small metro is Missoula, Montana.

The study attempts to fill a severe knowledge gap in our understanding of the nature and scope of U.S. production shifts to China and elsewhere. Findings indicate that during 2004, the U.S. will lose as many as 406,000 jobs as they are shifted from the U.S. to other countries. The figure compares to 204,000 jobs in 2001. Nearly one-fourth of the 2004 job losses are expected to go to China. Mexico and India are the other significant beneficiaries of the offshoring trend.

Using data from the Current Employment Statistics survey and the Current Population Survey, the authors produce a comparative analysis of IT labor markets in six key metropolitan areas to examine the state of IT industry employment in the United States.

The authors demonstrate within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs for new firms results in higher take-up rates of education. It also leads, through a thick- market externality, to higher rates of job creation for high-skilled labor as well as average match productivity.

The paper analyzes the performance of Mexican manufacturing firms following trade liberalization within a very specific institutional setting: The North American Free-Trade Agreement. The authors compare plants productivity growth and patterns of job creation and destruction across their relative degree of integration into foreign product markets, their access to technology, and behavior with respect to research and development.

The paper addresses a lack of evidence on the impact of performance pay in the public sector by
evaluating a pilot scheme of incentives in a major government agency. The authors focus on three main issues: whether performance pay matters for public service workers; what the team basis of the scheme implies; and the impact of the differential measurement precision.

The authors hope to provide a tentative
understanding of the processes that have been important for the evolution of the information technology (IT) labour market in India. The paper analyses NASSCOM and National Sample Survey data to explore the processes that deepen
the IT labour market in India.