Work Life Challenges - workforce management and worker involvement solutions

Prosjektets arbeid i rapporteringsperioden har resultert i to arbeider:1) Barth, E. J. C. Davis og R. Freeman (2015), Augmenting the Human Capital Earnings Equation With Measures of Where People Work, og studien vi fokuserer på her: 2) Bratsberg, B. og K. Røed (2015), The Nordic Welfare Model in an Open European Labor Markets. IZA Policy Paper 109. Bratsberg og Røed stiller spørsmålet: Er det mulig å opprettholde en ambisiøs og omfordelende Nordisk velferdsstat i Europa med åpne grenser? Forfatterne baserer sitt arbeide på longitudinelle registerdata som dekker fire årtier. Først viser de et nedslående bilde basert på historisk innvandring, når arbeidsinnvandrere fra lavinntektsland kom, men fikk etter hvert ustabile karrierer i arbeidsmarkedet med en tilhørende overrepresentasjon i trygdesystemet. Dette mønsteret ser forfatterne også hos de mer nylig ankomne arbeidsinnvandrere fra Øst-Europa, som raskt opplevde høye ledighetsrater. Forfatterne diskuterer så muligheter for å gjøre velferdsstaten mer "migrasjonsrobust" De argumenterer for at det er alternativer til å stenge grensene og/eller redusere velferdsstatens ambisjoner, og anbefaler en politikk basert på å styrke aktivitetskravene i trygdesystemet, øke minimumskravene når det gjelder jobbkrav, og å i større grad basere seg på arbeidsorienterte tjenester i stedet for kontantbaserte ytelser gitt til familien. Hjemmesider: http://www.samfunnsforskning.no/Prosjekter/Paagaaende-prosjekter/Work-Life-Challenges-workforce-management-and-worker-involvement-solutions-WLC

Sub-project 1 analyses bargaining regime and worker involvement changes affecting employers' job creation and demand for labour, contributing to inclusion and exclusion of workers. Sub-project 2 analyses whether the superior performance of workplaces impl ementing incentive pay schemes may reflect sorting (e.g., more able and healthy workers), but also be associated with external effects by possibly acting as an exclusion mechanism. Sub-project 3 analyses how different employer strategies ensuring function al flexibility facilitates inclusion and exclusions of workers. Sub-project 4 analyses how employer strategies ensuring numerical flexibility such as outsourcing and sub-contracting may be a way of creating new divisions in the labour market, or if this a ctually provide valuable work opportunities for marginalised workers. Sub-project 5 analyses how and why employers' recruitment strategies for specific worker groups and strategies to retain these, such as elderly, disabled workers and other marginal work ers, vary for different employer groups. Sub-project 6 analyses organisational change, down- and upsizing, their frequency, how they are conducted, and finally how worker involvement influences the outcomes. Sub-project 7 provides a timely and needed desc ription of the Norwegian work life 2011, of the major trends and the major challenges, for policy makers, employers and trade unions, general audience and for the research community. The project bears evidence on institutional differences (UK vs. Norway) in how manpower strategies and worker involvement adapt to changing business cycles and legislations. As background for our analyses, we conducts a new detailed questionnaire survey; the Norwegian Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011 (NWERS2011), wh ich when linked with the previous two employer surveys(1997,2003) and added register data on individuals and organisations will give us panel information on establishments and workers over 16 years.