Skill structure and labor market integration of immigrants in Europe

Across European countries, immigrants are disadvantaged in labor market attainment relative to natives: foreign-born individuals are less likely to be employed and more likely to be unemployed. Previous research indicates that immigrants’ employment chances are better when the share of low-skill jobs in the labor market is large. Upgrading of the job structure, which has taken place in many countries over recent decades, might therefore have hurt immigrants’ employment prospects. However, an exclusive focus on skill demand neglects another important development in the skill structure of advanced economies: educational expansion. The rapid rise in skill supply has tended to outpace the decline in the low-skill job share with increasing over-education as a consequence, potentially leading to crowding-out of immigrant workers from employment. Based on data from the European Union Labour Force Surveys (EU-LFS) 2004-2016, we perform analyses that jointly consider the demand and supply sides of labor markets. Our results indicate that the size of the low-skill job sector is positively related to immigrants’ employment if and only if those employed in the low-skill sector have low qualifications. In economies with high rates of over-education, where many well-educated natives occupy low-skill jobs, the labor market prospects of immigrants deteriorate.

Apprenticeship non-completion in Germany: a money matter?

German establishments heavily rely on the apprenticeship system for skill supply. With one in four apprenticeship contracts ending before successful completion, it is in the interest of establishments and policy-makers to determine factors, which reduce non-completion. This paper investigates the role of apprenticeship wages and income prospects after completion for apprenticeship non-completion in Germany. For this purpose, this study identifies incidences of apprenticeship non-completion in a large sample of administrative data on employment biographies and estimates a piecewise exponential model of the non-completion hazard with shared frailties by occupations. The results suggest a robust and significant association with both apprenticeship wages and skilled worker wages. All else at means, apprenticeships which are paid 5% more than the mean apprenticeship wage, on average have a 0.8 percentage points higher estimated survival rate. In turn, an apprenticeship expected to lead to a skilled job that is paid 5% above average, has an estimated survival rate, which is 3.1 percentage points higher on average. These findings highlight the importance of income prospects for apprenticeship non-completion.

Outsourcing: A Potential Shock Absorber for the Hotels in Bono and Ahafo Regions

This study assesses the effect of outsourcing on organisational performance of hotels in Bono and Ahafo Regions. The study adopted quantitative method using descriptive survey. Forty (40) managerial staffs were purposively and randomly sampled. The primary data was gathered using questionnaire while secondary data were obtained from the list of registered hotels from Ghana Tourism Authority and validated through peer review. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyses the data gathered. The study found thatoutsourcing had contributed to increase productivity, profits, encourages employee innovation, maintains competitiveness in the market, allows hotel to focus on core areas and provides faster and quality service to customers. However, the study revealed some challenges that hotels operators face as a result of outsourcing some of their operations such as exposure of itself to operational risks; it affects the continuity of skill supply and the retention of in-house knowledge and expertise, and it causes disruption to the continuity of the services. It is recommended that, hotels should put in place risk control measures so that failures on the part of the outsourced agencies are curtailed.