Search results

This study presents a meaningful moderator, a fundamental characteristic of employers – their size, to unravel the inconsistencies regarding the relationship between the workers’ voluntary employer changes and salary attainment in previous studies. Results indicate that voluntary employer changes did not predict salary attainment in large firms, whereas a positive effect was found to be stronger in medium than in small firms. Also presented herein are several explanations for the moderating property of firm size.

The purpose of this paper is to place empirical research on New Zealand employers’ attitudes to collective bargaining and legislative change within the context of the long running debate of flexibility.

A cross-sectional survey design using a self-administered postal questionnaire, covering private sector employers with ten or more staff and including employers within all 17 standard industry classification. To explore particular issues, an additional in-depth interviews were conducted of 25 employers participating in the survey.

It is found that employers support overwhelmingly recent legislative changes though there are variations across industries and firm sizes. There is also considerable variation in terms of which legislative changes are applied in the workplace. Despite fewer constraints on employer-determined flexibility, there was a rather puzzling finding that most employers still think that employment legislation is even balanced or favouring employees.

Cross-sectional survey findings of New Zealand employer attitudes to legislative changes are few and provide valuable data for policy makers, unions, employers and employment relations researchers. The paper also contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of pressures to increase employer-determined flexibility in many western countries.

In a previous monograph a discussion took place on stages one and part of stage two of the three stage process in an unfair dismissal action, namely the employee having to show that he has been dismissed (stage one), and some of the reasons for dismissal which fall within the statutory categories, namely the employee's capability and qualifications; misconduct and redundancy (part of stage two). In this monograph an analysis is proposed on the two remaining reasons, these being the contravention of a duty imposed by an enactment and some other substantial reason. There will then follow a discussion on the test of fairness as constituting the third of the three stage process and on the remedies available when the tribunal finds that the employee has been unfairly dismissed.

Using matched data from the 1996 to 2004 Current Population Survey (CPS), we examine racial patterns in annual transitions into and out of health insurance coverage. We first decompose racial differences in static health insurance coverage rates into group differences in transition rates into and out of health insurance coverage. The low rate of health insurance coverage among African-Americans is due almost entirely to higher annual rates of losing health insurance than whites. Among the uninsured, African-Americans have similar rates of gaining health insurance in the following year as whites. Estimates from the matched CPS also indicate that the lower rate of health insurance coverage among Asians is almost entirely accounted for by a relatively high rate of losing health insurance. In contrast to these findings, differences in health insurance coverage between Latinos and whites are due to group differences in both the rate of health insurance loss and gain. Using logit regression estimates, we also calculate nonlinear decompositions for the racial gaps in health insurance loss and gain. We find that two main factors are responsible for differences in health insurance loss between working-age whites and minorities: job loss and education level. Higher rates of job loss account for 30 percent of the health insurance gap for African-Americans and Asians, and 16 percent of the health insurance gap for Latinos. Lower levels of education explain roughly 15 percent of the gap for African-Americans and Latinos (Asians' higher levels of education serve to close the gap). Higher rates of welfare and SSI participation among African-Americans also serve to widen the gap in health insurance loss by 8 percent.

This paper is the first to present empirical evidence consistent with models of signaling through unemployment and to uncover a new stylized fact using the 1988–2006 Displaced Worker Supplement (DWS) of the Current Population Survey (CPS), namely that, among white-collar workers, post-displacement earnings fall less rapidly with unemployment spells for layoffs than for plant closings. Because high-productivity workers are more likely to be recalled than low-productivity ones, they may choose to signal their productivity though unemployment, in which case the duration of unemployment may be positively related to post-displacement wages. Identification is done using workers whose plant closed as they cannot be recalled, and no incentives to signal arise.

I use data from employers and longitudinal data from former/current recipients covering the period 1997 to early 2004 to analyze the relationship between job skills, job changes, and the evolution of wages. I analyze the effects of job skill requirements on starting wages, on-the-job training opportunities, wage growth prospects, and job turnover. The results show that jobs of different skill requirements differ in their prospects for earnings growth, independent of the workers who fill these jobs. Furthermore, these differences in wage growth opportunities across jobs are important determinants of workers’ quit propensities (explicitly controlling for unobserved worker heterogeneity). The determinants and consequences of job dynamics are investigated. The results using a multiplicity of methods, including the estimation of a multinomial endogenous switching model of wage growth, show that job changes, continuity of work involvement, and the use of cognitive skills are all critical components of the content of work experience that leads to upward mobility. The results underscore the sensitivity of recipients’ job transition patterns to changes in labor market demand conditions.

Since their creation through the Industrial Training Act 1964 to hear appeals against levies, the jurisdiction of industrial tribunals has grown considerably. One aspect of this jurisdiction, unfair dismissal, is examined here. Basic principles related to the law of unfair dismissal are examined. The practice and procedure of an industrial tribunal solely in connection with unfair dismissal cases are examined in greater detail. A case study is used to illustrate the important aspects of procedure. Appendices give relevant forms and extracts from the appropriate Code of Practice.

In the previous monograph, a discussion took place on what constitutes dismissal and when the termination of the contract of employment takes effect. These two aspects treat the first of the statutory qualifications necessary to enable the employee to exercise his right not to be unfairly dismissed, namely that he must first be dismissed.

There is an increasing realisation that managerial and professional staff play a crucial role in determining the success of the organisations which employ them, whether in the private or the public sector. Hence there is a growing concern with the quality and development of such staff. A detailed study of these important occupational groups, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC reference F/00/23/00 98) was recently conducted by the authors. Although focused on Britain, the research is linked with parallel studies being undertaken in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and several other European countries. The broader international study will be published within the next year as Roomkin, M. (Ed.), The Changing Character of Managerial Employment: A Comparative View Oxford, University Press, New York and Oxford. The demographic and educational trends which relate to managerial and professional employees, their careers and other aspects of the management of such human resources are discussed. The remuneration of managerial and professional staff, their unionisation and their role in the wider society are then considered.

The original legislation which introduced the redundancy payments scheme was the Redundancy Payments Act 1965. This was the first of the substantive statutory individual employment rights given to an employee; other individual employment rights, as for example, the right not to be unfairly dismissed, followed some years later. The Redundancy Payments Act 1965 has been repealed and the provisions on redundancy are now to be found in the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978.