Evaluating Labour Market Flexibility Using the TOPSIS Method: Sustainable Industrial Relations

This study evaluates labour market flexibility using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method. TOPSIS is employed by comparing spatial (i.e., different countries) and temporal (i.e., long-time horizon) terms. Sustainable industrial relations processes are considered in shaping the flexibility of the labour market in 15 European Union Member States from 2009 to 2018. Countries are grouped into classes to provide a basis for benchmarking results against social and employment policies implemented at the national level. A five-step quantitative MCDA method is formulated using published data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results indicate that the TOPSIS method is an appropriate approach for measuring labour market flexibility internationally. Moreover, in relation to workforce phenomena, the findings show that the method offers the possibility of examining the impact of particular factors related to social and employment policies of a country in terms of sustainable development and socioeconomic growth. The lack of precision tools to forecast the development of national and transnational labour markets—particularly during the COVID-19 era—highlights the importance of such a method for workforce planners and policymakers. Developing sustainable industrial relations in terms of associated national externalities is the motivation of the research.

“La donnée n’est pas un donné”: Statistics, Quantification and Democratic Choice

This article investigates the transformation of employment policies in France, Germany, the UK and at European level, problematizing their shift towards governance-driven quantification, which has at its core the quest for efficiency putting equivalence between more and better, and having more for less. Numbers become both targets and evaluators leading to rational optimization of the data produced. This calls democracy into question. Citizens have no say in how they are accounted for. Employment takes on a very different meaning encompassing any job, regardless of wage, working conditions, or contract type. Social criticism movements face the task to produce alternative data relying on democratized procedures and justice expectations. Such data, capable of legitimately counteracting governance-driven quantification, would support another “understanding” of the collective issue at hand.

Youth Employment Policies: Tackling Meanings and Social Norms within National Contexts

The transnational urgency of tackling youth employment problems has prompted state interventions, which have strongly geared youth policies toward employability. Applying a cognitive and interpretative approach, this article compares youth employment policies in four contexts—France, Canada, Quebec and Argentina—to highlight frames of reference and social norms involved in public action. The results reveal, first, commonalities and differences in public-policy approaches, in terms of goals, targeted populations, solutions, services and tools. Second, beyond policies’ formal characteristics, semantic analysis highlights the major national references and policy directions in the realm of youth employment. Third, the frames of reference show social norms shaping state solidarity and young people’s role in the labour market. The results stem from a documentary analysis of some 100 youth employment policies and programs, as well as interpretative analysis of interviews (N = 20) with experts and coordinators of some of the main policies in each context.

Employment or Development in a Semi-Peripheral Region: The Roadrunner Paradigm

This study observes the relationship between employment policies and the evolution of the productive system, applying the theoretical framework of local development to an average-sized town in a semi-peripheral area of the European Union, during the period from 1975 to 2015. To do so, a case analysis was made of the outcomes of employment policies via their effects on the variables impacting on the productive fabric. The following data sources were used: grey literature related to public policies; published statistics on demographic variables and economic activity; and local press reports. The following results were obtained: (a) the responses of economic agents owe more to the changes in the international scenario than to employment policies; (b) it is essential to analyse the evolution of demographic factors to properly interpret the relationship between labour supply and demand. We conclude that (a) corporate culture significantly influences the success or otherwise of employment policies, and (b) in the semi-peripheral area discussed, unemployment is an endemic problem that successive cohesion and employment policies have failed to resolve. Therefore, the use of innovation-oriented theoretical and practical approaches should be reconsidered.

Sharing Employee: B2B Employment Model in the Era of Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Implication for Human Resource Management

With the explosion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the concept of “Sharing Employees” has emerged in China. This study will discuss the background of the formation of the “Sharing Employees,” how the “Sharing Employees” model is implemented, the relative risks, and the impact on human resource management. Currently, this virus is spreading worldwide, affecting the economy and increasing the unemployment rate. This study will help other countries to learn from this model and provide suggestions for adopting flexible employment policies to ease employment pressure and increase employment channels through the “Sharing Employees” B2B model.

A “Practically American” Canadian Woman Confronts a United States Citizen-Only Hiring Law: Katharine Short and the California Alien Teachers Controversy of 1915

In February 1915, non-citizen teachers throughout California abruptly learned that they would soon lose their jobs when state officials announced that local and county governments were required to enforce a long-forgotten anti-alien public employment law. In response, one Canadian immigrant teacher, Katharine Short, launched a diplomatic, legal, political, and public relations campaign against the policy. Earning the support of powerful (Anglo-)Canadian nationalists in wartime and a favorable depiction in California news coverage as a “practically American” Canadian woman, Short’s efforts culminated in an exemption for most immigrant teachers from the state’s nativist public employment policies. This article recovers, recounts, and contextualizes the California Alien Teachers Controversy of 1915 at the center of transformations in the political development, law, and politics of American citizenship and citizenship rights from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. It testifies to the growing power and powers of state governments to shape immigrants' lives and livelihoods via alienage law long into the mid-twentieth century, the rhetorical strength and courtroom limits of “right to contract” arguments in the context of anti-alien hiring and licensure disputes, and the disparate impact of these nativist laws on immigrants owing to inequalities of race, gender, and class and how those inequalities shaped the less-than-inclusive aims and strategies of Katharine Short in her campaign to alter the state's nativist public employment policies.

Labour Market Demands, Employability and Authenticity

Finding employment has been a challenge for young adults in recent years. This is not only due to high unemployment rates, but also because entering working life is more complicated than before. It is no longer just a question of credentials and skills. ‘Employability’ depends on investments in personal capacities: labour market demands in recruitment exceed the capacity of employees’ bodies and minds. This article asks what demands for increasing one’s employability young adults (aged 18–30) experience in relation to their education and working life and how they respond to these ideas, especially to the idea of modifying their minds and bodies—habitus—in order to increase their employability. What demands are they complying with or resisting? How and why are they doing so? The article draws on interviews with 40 young Finnish women and men. The data analysis reveals that employability ideals emphasising affective and bodily capacities or dispositions are not shared by everyone. However, modifying one’s attitude or demeanour seems to be less threatening for young adults than does changing one’s appearance or body. Changes to one’s body are associated with rules and codes dictated from above, whereas changing one’s mindset is usually conceived of as self-development; thus, it is not seen as contrary to authenticity. Identification with a line of work is an important factor in accepting demands on one’s body or demeanour. It should be asked if the importance of authenticity for young adults entering working life should be taken into consideration in governmental youth and employment policies.