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In Australia, as in many other countries, refugees are over-represented in the ranks of the unemployed, under-employed and precariously employed and often become frustrated in their attempts to secure work. Despite the construction industry being a major potential source of employment for refugees, there has been a surprising lack of research into their experiences of securing work in the industry. Addressing this gap and also the general lack of voice for refugees in construction research, the aim of this paper is to explore the barriers refugees face in securing employment in the construction industry.

This paper reports a survey of refugees who have worked or attempted to seek work in the Australian construction industry.

Results show that the main barriers to securing employment in construction are: lack of local work experience; employer discrimination; employer failure to recognise previous qualifications, skills and experience and employers not understanding the challenges they face. Government employment agencies and systems are also perceived to be of limited value and overly complex, in contrast to the activities of not-for-profit support agencies.

While the research is limited to Australia, the findings contribute an important and missing refugee dimension to the emerging body of research on construction social procurement. They also contribute unique sector-specific insights into the broader debate about refugee resettlement and employment. Further research is needed in other national contexts.

Recommendations are made to address the barriers to employment identified including: initiatives to provide refugees with work experience in the industry; education to break-down negative stereotypes of refugees among employers; greater support for not-for-profits supporting refugees and reform of government and employment agency systems and procedures.

By enhancing understanding of the barriers to employment for refugees in construction and proposing solutions to reduce those barriers, this research contributes new insights into a growing global challenge of how we better integrate growing numbers of refugees into harmonious and prosperous societies.

The findings are important in facilitating the smoother integration of refugees into society. Beyond the moral imperative, there are significant social, cultural and economic benefits which successful refugee integration brings to host countries and industries like construction which in many countries are now being required to employ refugees in their workforce as a condition of public sector contracts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the occupational specialization in rural labor market by analyzing the nature of part-time farming in rural China and estimating the impact of off-farm experience on the individual’s persistence and exit of part-time farming as well as its heterogeneity.

Using the panel data collected in 100 villages and 2,000 households across five provinces in 2008, 2012 and 2016, this study provides insights on the nature of part-time farming in rural labor market and find the impact and mechanism of off-farm employment experience on exiting part-time farming by adopting event history analysis.

Part-time farming is a stable long-run occupation in rural labor market of China from 2008 to 2015. Off-farm employment experience generally has positive effects on long-term part-time farming and the probability of exiting part-time farming. It significantly promotes female to exit part-time farming.

Based on the two-sector model, this study builds a conceptual framework of off-farm experience and occupational specialization and sets a theoretical basis of hazard model when using event history analysis. This study contributes to identify the impact of off-farm experience on persistence and exiting part-time farming in recent years. The empirical findings support the policy of promoting off-farm employment to improve occupational specialization.

Self‐employment has been stressed as a way for immigrants to enter and improve their situation in the labour market. However, research shows that some people who become self‐employed revert to wage employment or unemployment. The purpose of the paper is to study the labour market consequences of temporary self‐employment on paid employment among immigrants.

The paper uses micro‐econometric methods to estimate the effect of self‐employment, relative to continued wage employment, on earnings and employment opportunities in 2006. The paper also identifies the type of wage earner that temporarily enters self‐employment.

The paper finds that, relative to continued wage employment, self‐employment, with few exceptions, does not improve outcomes in the wage sector of immigrants and may in fact be associated with lower earnings and difficulties in returning to paid employment.

The results indicate that encouraging immigrant wage earners to become self‐employed should be done with care, since self‐employment does not necessarily improve subsequent labour market outcomes.

This study will be valuable to those who are interested in the economic consequences of immigrant self‐employment.

Various forms of precarious employment create barriers to the integration and inclusion of migrant workers in receiving countries. The purpose of this paper is to review extant research in employment relations and management to identify key factors that contribute to migrant workers' precarious employment and highlight potential avenues for future research.

The authors conducted a narrative literature review drawing on 38 academic journal articles published between 2005 and 2020.

The authors’ review suggests that macro- and meso-level factors contribute to the precarious employment conditions of migrant workers. However, there is a limited articulation of successful practices and potential solutions to reduce migrant work precarity and exclusion. The literature on migrant workers' precarious employment experience is primarily focused on low-skilled sector (e.g. agriculture, hospitality, domestic care) jobs. In addition, few studies have explored the role of worker characteristics, such as gender, class, ethnicity, race and migration status, in shaping the experience of migrant workers in precarious employment.

The results of this research highlight the importance of engaging multilevel actors in addressing migrant employment precarity, including policymakers, employers and employment agencies.

This research contributes to a growing conversation of migrant employment precarity by highlighting the heterogeneity of migrant groups and calling for the use of intersectional lenses to understand migrant workers' experiences of precarious employment.

Agency work represents a unique form of employment that has received increased attention in recent years. Supporters of the agency employment industry have cited increased accessibility and flexibility at an individual and organisational level, yet critics have highlighted disparities in treatment and the limited protection afforded by the contract. Previous psychological studies into the working experiences of these employees have forwarded a series of findings that have frequently conflicted, so this paper begins by exploring research into the areas of motive, job satisfaction, job security, and organisational support. The purpose of this paper is to better understand how this form of employment can psychologically affect agency workers by focusing upon these key areas.

The study's research design incorporated 25 semi-structured interviews with agency workers, recruitment consultants, and representatives from third-party employers. These interviews were then supplemented by longitudinal data from follow-up interviews conducted with agency workers from the initial sample. During the study, the researcher undertook a number of agency working assignments, and ethnographic analysis of diary extracts represented a third source of data.

Results highlighted the importance of motive, as it was found to influence how agency workers viewed their employment. The lack of obligation in temporary contracts was perceived to lead to isolation from permanent colleagues, increase vulnerability, and reduce job security and organisational commitment.

Findings strongly supported the claim that the pre-assignment motives of individuals had a significant impact upon their resulting experiences. Agency workers employed in longer-term assignments reported greater integration into the organisation, resulting in increased commitment towards the third-party employer, and improved relationships with permanent staff.

The current research incorporated multiple perspectives to create an increased understanding of the agency employment industry and its impact upon individuals.

People with intellectual disability have a low rate of employment in Australia and internationally. Their low employment rate is set within a context of limited employment choices. Further, the most common types of work currently undertaken by people with intellectual disability – open and sheltered employment – have limitations and may not be suitable for everyone. Expanding the employment choices available represents an important way forward, but evidence is needed to guide the expansion. This paper aims to contribute to the evidence required by comparing people with intellectual disability’s experience and outcomes in open and sheltered employment to their experience and outcomes working in social enterprises, which is becoming an important alternative employment option for this group.

The paper uses the qualitative accounts of 51 people with intellectual disability to compare experiences and outcomes in open, sheltered and social enterprise employment in Australia.

The paper finds that social enterprises combine some of the benefits of open and sheltered employment and thus expand employment choice. However, the level of business/market development and opportunities for employment in social enterprises are currently limited and require further development and scale to enable social enterprises to be an option for more people with intellectual disability. Policy implications are drawn out for expanding employment choice, in particular through social enterprise employment, for people with intellectual disability.

The paper offers the first three-way comparison of open, sheltered and social enterprise employment for people with intellectual disability, contributing to both the disability employment and social enterprise literature.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for employer brand equity (EBE) that combines both perspectives of employer brand customers into a unified framework for employee attraction and retention.

This paper extends previous conceptual work on EBE by identifying the role of EBE antecedents in internal and external employer branding. In addition, it recognizes the interactive nature of employer-employee relationship.

The framework incorporates employee experience with the employer, which relates to the interaction between employee and employer and recognizes the internal and external perspectives simultaneously. Further, the unified framework helps to develop a four-cell typology for the strategic management of an employer brand.

Existing research has failed to integrate the two perspectives of employment customers in a clear model and, thus, offered limited applicability to an employment setting. The EBE framework goes beyond existing models by providing a conceptualization that aims to reflect the employer-brand relationship from the perspective of existing and potential employees. Further, it provides theoretical and empirical rationale for a set of propositions that can empirically be examined in future research.

Exploring experiences of participants on an Irish active labour market programme, the purpose of this paper is to examine accounts of everyday forms of resistance to the subject positions offered in the dominant discourse of “doing employment” espoused on such schemes.

Employing narrative research, the process of individual opposition to established work routines is illustrated at the level of meaning, identity and self‐reflection by using the three‐dimensional narrative inquiry space to chronicle three participants’ stories. Their newly formed subjectivities (created by changes encountered in their past lives and the situations they are experiencing in their present realities) challenge the power of the dominant discourse of ‘doing employment’ on these schemes. The paper illustrates how the individuals respond when confronted with feelings of difference between the subject positions offered within the dominant discourse and their own preferred interest.

Their stories suggest different forms of micro‐political resistance, from subtle acts and behaviours through to contesting subjectivities and meanings. The article describes how they exercise power in imposing their own meanings through challenge and reinscription, thus rendering the dominant discourse less robust. This creates space for further challenge and reinscription, possibly enabling others to think differently, such as the author, who has moved from unquestioning acceptance of the dominant discourse to an emerging micro‐political resistance to “doing employment”.

These accounts highlight the relevance of using narrative research to reveal, heretofore, silent stories of how individual work routines disrupt prevailing institutional discourse, depicting situations where a story by challenges a story of.

This paper aims to contribute to prior gender-based conceptual models within organisational and management studies by incorporating an additional lens of disability. The authors present a context specific and embodied based model that we call the “two-way mirror effect” which accounts for the environmental and discursive effects of gender and disability within the workplace.

The paper reviews existing literature on gender, disability and employment and uses that literature to construct and support the concept of a two-way mirror effect.

By drawing on organisation and management-based studies, the authors have shown how previous models do not currently account for the experiences of disabled women within the workplace. Disabled workers, and especially disabled women face a myriad of unique barriers, including masculine and able-bodied employment practices (e.g. performative expectations) and exclusionary physical spaces (e.g. access, location to required facilities), that exclude them from full employment participation.

The review of existing literature and conceptual models reveal the gaps in research that academics and practitioners can build upon and the paper identifies the dominant norms that are embedded within organisational practices, which can be challenged to promote inclusion and equality.

The authors present a new intersectional-based conceptual model to fill a gap in organisational and management-based studies that accounts for the unique employment experiences of disabled employees, specifically disabled women.

Massive shifts in the recruitment landscape, the continually changing nature of work and workers, and extraordinary technological progress have combined to enable unparalleled advances in how current and prospective employees receive and process information about organizations. Once the domain of internal organizational public relations and human resources (HR) teams, most employment branding has moved beyond organizations’ control. This chapter provides a conceptual framework pertaining to third party employment branding, defined as communications, claims, or status-based classifications generated by parties outside of direct company control that shape, enhance, and differentiate organizations’ images as favorable or unfavorable employers. Specifically, the authors first theorize about the underlying mechanisms by which third party employment branding might signal prospective and current employees. Second, the authors develop a framework whereby we comprehensively review third party employment branding sources, thus identifying the different ways that third party employment branding might manifest. Third, using prototypical examples, the authors link the various signaling mechanisms to the various third party employment branding sources identified. Finally, the authors propose an ambitious future research agenda that considers not only the positive aspects of third party employment branding but also potential “dark sides.” Thus, the authors view this chapter as contributing to the broader employment branding literature, which should enhance scholarly endeavors to study it and practitioner efforts to leverage it.