High numbers of unproductive firms will cut GDP growth

Significance Low interest rates and easy financing conditions in major economies have triggered a search for yield on the part of investors flushed with liquidity and this has allowed so-called 'zombie' companies -- whose operating profits are not sufficient to service their debt -- to obtain financing to stay in business. Impacts Estimates of the zombie problem's scale may be understated, if unlisted small and medium-sized firms are worse affected than listed ones. US studies find that having fewer new firms in an industry cuts business dynamism and worker mobility, as well as sustaining zombie firms. The more unproductive zombie jobs that Europe’s job retention schemes keep alive, the lower longer-term productivity will be.

Mobility Pathways and Closed Doors

This chapter compares instances of worker mobility and marginalization in the workplace. Wilson examines the mechanisms by which some Latino workers have been able to access better-quality jobs while others have not. Specifically, he argues that later-generation Latinos leverage their “in-betweenness” to gain more prominent roles in a socially and culturally divided workplace. By contrast, those who remain stuck in the lowest-rung restaurant jobs are hampered by compounded disadvantages that cut them off from not only their fellow coworkers but also relatively better job opportunities that are available to the latter. Confined to the “back closet” of restaurant employment, undocumented Latina workers bear the brunt of a socially segregated workplace that has no place for them but at the bottom and out of the way.