Flexible Workers: The Politics of Homework in Postindustrial Britain

This article opens up a new perspective on market liberalism's triumph in the late twentieth century through an examination of the political battles that were fought in Britain over the regulation of homework. Ubiquitous in the late Victorian era, this form of waged labor was curtailed by Edwardian wage regulations but resurged in the 1970s as a result of competition from low-wage economies abroad and fast-changing consumer tastes. Alongside growing use of homeworkers in consumer industries, new information technologies made it increasingly possible for some forms of professional work to move into the home. This article explores the debates that swirled around these different forms of homework, pitting antipoverty campaigners, feminists, and activists against ministers, employers, and civil servants. It shows how Conservative and New Labour governments failed to recognize the structural similarities between Victorian-style “sweated” labor and the emerging world of telework, freelancing, and self-employment, and how the intellectual excitement generated by Britain's transition toward a postindustrial future dovetailed with the New Right commitment to deregulation and the creation of “flexible” labor markets. A brief comparison with homework in the United States underlines the value of local, particular histories to our larger understanding of ideological change in modern societies.

Digitalization and Labor Market—A Perspective within the Framework of Pandemic Crisis

The current pandemic crisis, which is far from being over, has led to a significant paradigm shift in economics. In a turbulent environment in which the labor market has encountered a long series of changes generated by the processes of automation, robotization and digitalization, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that a workforce with digital skills can quickly adjust to new circumstances. Since novel issues, such as restrictions on internal movement and distorted supply chains, put major stress on the labor market, it seems that there is an urgent need for reshaping economies and following up-to-date technological trends. Moreover, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant number of scholars and policymakers expressed their concerns about the volatility of employment and the weak ability of labor to adapt to new types of jobs. Within this framework, our paper aims to analyze the plausible impacts of digital efficiency on the future development of the labor market. Based upon the assumption that employment is facing ongoing challenges and the labor market is constantly being reshaped by technological trends, our study attempts to provide a pragmatic analysis of the effects of digital skills and the use of the Internet on salaries and wages in EU member states. Since, according to our results, the levels of salaries and wages are strongly correlated with digital proficiency and Internet usage, a consistent effort to increase the digital skills of individuals may be required to achieve a more effective and flexible labor market.

Temperature, Labor Reallocation, and Industrial Production: Evidence from India

To what degree can labor reallocation mitigate the economic consequences of weather-driven agricultural productivity shocks? I estimate that temperature-driven reductions in the demand for agricultural labor in India are associated with increases in nonagricultural employment. This suggests that the ability of nonagricultural sectors to absorb workers may play a key role in attenuating the economic consequences of agricultural productivity shocks. Exploiting firm-level variation in the propensity to absorb workers, I estimate relative expansions in manufacturing output in more flexible labor markets. Estimates suggest that, in the absence of labor reallocation, local economic losses could be up to 69 percent higher. (JEL J23, J43, L60, O13, O14, Q54, Q56)

Technology upgrading and labor degrading? A sociological study of three robotized factories

In recent years, the technology-driven industrial upgrading in China has resulted in human labor being replaced with robots. This article explores the impact of "intelligent manufacturing" on workers from the following two perspectives: labor relations and the labor process. The authors argue that workers on the shopfloor are experiencing some forms of labor degradation due to robotization, i.e., more flexible labor relations, deskilling, and strengthened technical control. Such a corporation-led and machine-centered industrial upgrading is driven by state policy, capital, and the labor market.

Innovation, on-the-job learning, and labor contracts: an organizational equilibria approach

An established tenet of the literature is that the use of flexible labor leads to less innovation. Yet, less attention has been paid to the possibility that it is the decision to innovate that generates the incentive to hire on a permanent basis. The goal of this paper is to show the existence of interlocking complementarities between the firm's technological and hiring strategies. To do so, we develop a simple model where the workers’ decision to invest in human capital is affected by the type of employment contract (temporary versus permanent) and by the type of technological investments (routine versus innovative). When the firm is unable to coordinate its actions across these different domains, two equilibria simultaneously exist: in the ‘high-road’ equilibrium, firms invest more in innovative projects and hire on a permanent basis; in the ‘low-road’ equilibrium, they invest more in routine projects and hire on a temporary basis.

Economic Growth And Unemployment: An Empirical Assessment of Okun’s Law In The Case of Liberia

The purpose of this study is to examine the connection between economic growth and unemployment in Liberia between 2001 and 2019. The unit root test and the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) Co-integration test were used to examine the relationship between unemployment and GDP. The Auto Regressive Distribution Lag (ARDL) bounds test is used to determine if the variables are linked in the long run. According to the results of the ARDL model, there is no long-run relationship between unemployment and economic growth. This study' results have particularly important policy implications for Liberian economic authorities. In both the long and medium term, the observational results showed no meaningful relationship between unemployment and economic growth. The Liberian government should direct its spending toward activities that directly and indirectly promote the creation of employment and decent jobs, a conducive environment and flexible labor market policies or legislation that are not impediments to job creation, and finally, the government should prioritize labor intensive industries.

Economic Growth And Unemployment: An Empirical Assessment of Okun’s Law In The Case of Liberia

The aim of this research is to look at the relationship between economic growth and unemployment in Liberia from 2001 to 2019. To investigate the association between unemployment and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the unit root test, the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) Co-integration test, and the Standard Granger Causality test were used. The Auto Regressive Distribution Lag (ARDL) bounds test is used to decide if the variables have a long run linkage. The ARDL model findings indicate that there is no long-run association between unemployment and economic growth. The findings of this analysis have especially significant policy implications for Liberian economic policymakers. The observational findings revealed a negligible association between unemployment and economic growth in both the long and short term. The Liberian government should redirect its spending toward activities that directly and indirectly promote the creation of employment and decent jobs, a conducive environment and flexible labor market policies or legislation that are not impediments to job creation should be created, and finally, the government should prioritize industries that promote labor intensive.

The Italian Start Up Act: a microeconometric program evaluation

This paper analyzes the impact of the Italian Start Up Act which entered into force in October 2012. This public policy provides a unique bundle of benefits, such as tax incentives, public loan guarantees, and a more flexible labor law, for firms registered as “innovative startups” in Italy. This legislation has been implemented by the Italian government to increase innovativeness of small and young enterprises by facilitating access to (external) capital and (high-skilled) labor. Consequently, the goal of our evaluation is to assess the impact of the policy on equity, debt, and employment. Using various conditional difference-in-difference models, we find that the Italian innovative startup policy has met its primary objectives. The econometric results strongly suggest that Italian innovative startups are more successful in obtaining equity and debt capital and they also hire more employees because of the program participation.

Priority Areas For The Development Of A Flexible Labor Market In Uzbekistan

The article discusses the main tasks of a flexible labor market and employment of the population in the Republic of Uzbekistan. The analysis of the dynamics of the structure of labor resources, the level of participation of the population of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the labor resources by sex, the dynamics of the level of employment and unemployed in the Republic of Uzbekistan. The main conclusion of the authors is that solving the problems of increasing the flexibility of the labor market and stimulating the reduction of illegal employment, growth of employment and efficiency of labor use, including by increasing the territorial mobility of labor resources.

Development of Virtual Migration in the Context of the Ongoing Digitalization

The global trends of the constant increase in the digital component indicate that the economy is increasingly tilting into the “virtual plane”. Digital technologies are fundamentally changing almost all existing professional areas. Digitalization is not only fundamentally transforming labor relations, but also requires and facilitates the development of new forms of migration. A “transnational virtual space” is emerging, in which vast amounts of data across national borders without the physical movement of workers. With an aging population, virtual migration is becoming one of the most important conditions for the dynamic development of the digital economy. The purpose of this report is to investigate the algorithmic organization of work, combined with flexible labor relations and contributing to the inclusion of mobile labor in a stratified global labor market focused on the penetration of digital technologies into all sectors and spheres of life. The method used by the author is the analysis of the main trends in the development of virtual migration. The novelty of the study lies in examining the impact of digitalization not only on labor relations, but also, in terms of the development of new forms of mobility.