Documents Osterman, Paul 11 results

"Recent economic events have sparked debates over the degree of structural mismatch in the U.S. economy. One of the most frequent claims is that workers lack the skills that employers demand. The existing literature, however, analyzes this potential mismatch at a high level of aggregation with abstract indices and noisy proxies that obscure the underlying mechanisms. The authors address these issues by presenting and analyzing results from a survey of U.S. manufacturing establishments. The survey is the first, to their knowledge, to directly measure concrete employer skill demands and hiring experiences in a nationally representative survey at the industry level. The findings indicate that demand for higher-level skills is generally modest, and that three-quarters of manufacturing establishments do not show signs of hiring difficulties. Among the remainder, demands for higher-level math and reading skills are significant predictors of long-term vacancies, but demands for computer skills and other critical-thinking/problem-solving skills are not. Of particular interest, high-tech plants do not experience greater levels of hiring challenges. When the authors examine the potential mechanisms that could contribute to hiring difficulties, they find that neither external regional supply conditions nor internal firm practices are predictive of hiring problems. Rather, the data show that establishments that are members of clusters or that demand highly specialized skills have the greatest probability of incurring long-term vacancies. The authors interpret these results as a sign that it is important to think about factors that complicate the interaction of supply and demand—such as disaggregation and communication/coordination failures—rather than simply focusing on inadequate labor supply."

"Sur le marché du travail américain, 20 à 30 % des travailleurs occupent des emplois à bas salaire (selon le seuil retenu par l'auteur), qui se situent le plus souvent dans le secteur des services, tout en concernant un grand nombre d'activités et de professions. Dans ce contexte, la lutte contre les emplois à bas salaire et de faible qualité constitue un enjeu important pour les politiques publiques. Aussi, plusieurs leviers d'intervention sont-ils mis en œuvre aux États-Unis : outre la fixation de normes en matière de rémunération (salaire minimum – fixé au niveau des États – et autres standards), les syndicats et d'autres organisations ciblant les travailleurs (community organizations et worker centers) peuvent se mobiliser pour soutenir les salaires. En parallèle, des outils innovants ont été développés à l'échelon local, tels que la mise en place de « salaires décents » s'appliquant aux salariés des collectivités locales ou à leurs prestataires, et la fixation de critères de sélection afin que les entreprises bénéficiant d'aides au développement économique s'engagent à faire progresser leur politique en matière d'emploi."

"The decline in the scope and power of American unions has led to a search for new strategies and new organizational forms to better succeed in representing the interests of employees in the labour market. This paper examines the role of community-based organizations of the sort that proved so powerful during the Civil Rights Movement. The subject of the paper is a strong national network of community organizations that is neighbourhood-based and draws heavily on churches and other community institutions. The organizations are put together in neighbourhoods, yet they also wield power at the city and state levels. The paper describes the organizations and examines and assesses their labour market policies. The second part of the paper takes up organizational issues and, in particular, describes how the structure and culture of these organizations enable them to avoid some of the organizational perils that have befallen unions and other social movement organizations. The paper concludes by comparing these organizations with traditional unions and by discussing their prospects for growth as well as their limitations."

"An unresolved question about now-widespread innovative work systems such as teams and quality programs is whether they influence wage determination. This study examines that possible association in manufacturing. The author uses data from the 1997 National Establishment Survey that allow examination of how new work systems affected not only employees who were directly involved in them but other workers as well. The key finding is that for core blue-collar manufacturing employees, higher wages were associated with High Performance Work Organization (HPWO) systems. While higher skill levels and computer-based technologies were associated with higher wages, the key mechanism appears to have been productivity gains, independent of skill and technology, that were shared via various across-the-board wage payment systems. HPWO systems appear to have increased managers' wages as well, although through different channels. The author finds no evidence that HPWO-related wage gains led to greater wage inequality among the directly involved employees."

"At the 2008 SASE meeting in San José, Costa Rica, David Marsden organized a session on the prospects for a renewed institutional labour economics. The debate began with introductory remarks by Paul Osterman, who sketched out an argument that at the time was still in its very early stages. The introduction and the subsequent comments were found by the audience to be highly productive. After the session, the editors of Socio-Economic Review asked the participants to share their views with the readers of the journal. We are grateful to Paul Osterman for taking up the challenge and summarizing the state of his thinking in a brief draft of what has yet to be developed into a formal paper. We also thank the discussants who agreed to write up their comments on the basis of Osterman's intermediate draft."

"Despite the recent strength of the United States job market, about one fifth of the private-sector workforce is in poor-quality employment, earning poverty-level wages or less, with scant prospects for improvement. Against this background, the article focuses on demand-side policies, aimed at influencing firms' decision-making in the direction of better quality employment. Describing and evaluating a variety of programmes pursued to that end, the author argues for more policy coherence and a balanced approach combining training and economic development programmes working directly with employers, on the one hand, and increased unionization and better wage and working-time standards, on the other."