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Industry 4.0 refers to an era in which human work, creative activities and professional knowledge are largely replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots. Due to the current exponential rate of technological development and the infinite expansion and generalisation of technologies, it is not difficult to predict that these technologies will spread at exponential rates and will spur massive changes in the adopted production, management and governance mechanisms and in the future employment market. Especially, employment changes are inevitable with the rise in automation and the job scope and prospects are bound to vary widely. In this chapter, confrontation strategies for employment in Industry 4.0 are proposed. It is hoped that this study will be able to provide an accurate direction for future employment and will be able to contribute to the study of employment policies and Industry 4.0.

This article investigates whether employers are more likely to employ older workers when faced with a shortage of qualified labour. Furthermore, it analyses whether in such cases age stereotypes moderate employers' preferences towards four employment options: (1) supporting workers to continue until the retirement age, (2) encouraging workers to continue beyond the retirement age, (3) recruiting someone older than 55 and (4) (re)hiring someone who has retired.

Data were drawn from a survey conducted among Finnish employers in 2021 (response rate = 66%, N = 1,442). Applying factor analysis to questions about older workers' qualities compared to those of average workers, a distinction was made between perceptions of experience-related and adaptability-related qualities. Generalised ordered logistic regression models were estimated to analyse the relations of preferences for each employment option with experiencing recruitment problems, workplace age stereotypes and interactions between these.

Experiencing recruitment problems was positively related to preferences for hiring a retired person. Employers with difficulties in recruitment were more likely to support work until the retirement age and recruit someone over 55, but only if they had above-average positive perceptions of older workers' experience-related qualities. Employers confronted with recruitment difficulties were more likely to encourage workers to continue beyond the retirement age if they had more positive perceptions of older workers' adaptability-related qualities.

This study shows that, even when confronted with labour shortages and population ageing, workplace age stereotypes still pose a potential obstacle for employers to make the best use of an older workforce.

The need for the study is justified by the fact that scientists and policy makers around the world are trying to identify the potential threat of digitalisation, looking for ways to adapt to new changes and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the information society and the knowledge economy and to mitigate risks. Digitalisation also changes the labour market – using information and communication technology (ICT) in the working process opens up new opportunities. Moving from a traditional office to another environment, combining work with private life and recreation more effectively, while remote work deals with costly jobs, spaces and congestion on the city streets. The study aims to assess the development of remote work in the European Union (EU) and Latvia, assessing its effectiveness and the possibilities for long-term use by analysing its impact on the transformational directions of the economy. During the analysis, the following findings were made: identified the potential and problems of the deployment of remote work in Latvia, determined the main challenges of remote work and policies to improve the situation. The analysis employs theoretical and empirical research methods. The theoretical method of analysis and deduction provides information on its impact on the economy from the scientific literature on remote work and its diverse aspects. The comparative method is widely used to identify aspects of remote work distribution and economic development and their interaction. Practical implications of research – to make recommendations on policy directions to improve the situation, which would promote the further development of remote work.

For an entrant platform in the on-demand service market, choosing an appropriate employment model is critical. This study explores how the entrant optimally chooses the employment model to achieve better performance and investigates the optimal pricing strategies and wage schemes for both incumbent and entrant platforms.

Based on the Hotelling model, the authors develop a game-theoretic framework to study the incumbent's and entrant's optimal service prices and wage schemes. Moreover, the authors determine the entrant's optimal employment model by comparing the entrant's optimal profits under different market configurations and analytically analyze the impacts of some critical factors on the platforms' decision-making.

This study reveals that the impacts of the unit misfit cost of suppliers or consumers on the pricing strategies and wage schemes vary with different operational efficiencies of platforms. Only when both the service efficiency of contractors and the basic employee benefits are low, entrants should adopt the employee model. Moreover, a lower unit misfit cost of suppliers or consumers makes entrants more likely to choose the contractor model. However, the service efficiency of contractors has nonmonotonic effects on the entrant's decision.

This study focuses on an entrant's decision on the optimal employment model in an on-demand service market, considering the competition between entrants and incumbents on both the supplier and consumer sides, which has not been investigated in the prior literature.

The purpose of this paper is to use Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital–Field–Habitus to explore how refugees, asylum seekers and migrants accumulate and mobilise social, cultural, symbolic and economic capital to find meaningful work in the Australian construction industry.

The paper reports the results of a survey of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have either successfully or unsuccessfully searched for employment in the Australian construction industry.

The findings dispel widely held negative stereotypes of about this group by describing a highly capable workforce which could address significant skills shortages in the industry, while concurrently diversifying the workforce. However, it is found that refugees, asylum seekers and migrants face considerable barriers to finding meaningful employment in the construction industry. In circumventing these barriers, education institutions, charities and community-based organisations play an especially important role, alongside friends and family networks. They do this by helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants accumulate and deploy the necessary capital to secure meaningful work in the construction industry. Disappointingly, it is also found that the construction industry does little to help facilitate capital accumulation and deployment for this group, despite the urgent need to address diversity and critical skills shortages.

Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital–Field–Habitus, the findings make a number of new theoretical and practical contributions to the limited body of international research relating to the employment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers in the construction. The results are important because meaningful employment is widely accepted to be the single most factor in the successful integration of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants into a host society and the construction industry represents an important source of potential employment for them.

This paper aims to examine how organisational values affect diversity in terms of different competencies in rural family Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Recruiting a diverse workforce in rural family SMEs can be particularly difficult due to the prevalence of internal family values and the lack of available local specialised competencies. A deficiency of diversity in employment and competence acquisition and development can create problems, as it often prevents rural family SMEs from recruiting employees with a wide variety of qualifications and skills.

The study takes on a multi-case method of Swedish rural family SMEs, applying a qualitative content analysis approach. In total, 20 in-depth structured interviews are conducted with rural family SME owners and 2 industries were investigated and compared – the tourism and the manufacturing industries.

Rural family SMEs lack long-term employment strategies, and competence diversity does not appear to be a priority for rural family SMEs, as they often have prematurely decided who they will hire rather than what competencies are needed for their long-term business development. It is more important to keep the team of employees tight and the family spirit present than to include competence diversity and mixed qualifications in the employment acquisition and development.

Contrary to prior research, our findings indicate that rural family SMEs apply short-term competence diversity strategies rather than long-term prospects regarding competence acquisition and management, due to their family values and rural setting, which strictly narrows the selection of employees and competencies. Also, a general reluctance towards competence diversity is identified, which originates from the very same family values and rural context.

The world of work is changing and creating challenges and opportunities for the employment inclusion of young people with disabilities. In this article, the perceptions held by young adults with disabilities regarding participation in the future of work are examined.

One-on-one interviews were conducted with Canadian young adults (ages 18–36 years) living with a disability. Participants were asked about their thoughts regarding the impact of the changing nature of work on their labor market involvement and career aspirations. A thematic analysis was performed to identify and examine emergent salient themes.

In total, 22 young adults were interviewed; over half held secure employment. Career aspirations and work-related decisions were primarily shaped by a participant's health needs. The future of work was seen as a more proximal determinant to employment. Digital technologies were expected to impact working conditions and create barriers and facilitators to employment. Participants who indicated being securely employed held positive expectations regarding the impact of digital technology on their work. Participants working precariously held negative appraisals regarding the impact of digital technologies on employment opportunities. The role of technological and soft skills was critical to participating in a labor market reliant on advanced technology. Participants reported barriers to developing job skills related to their disability and their work arrangements.

This research highlights the importance of considering changes in the future of work, especially the digital transformation of the economy, in the design of initiatives which promote the employment inclusion of young adults with disabilities. Despite the significance of the changing nature of work, supporting health needs and encouraging access to secure work arrangements also remain paramount.

Wage employees enter self-employment either directly or in a staged manner and may subsequently undertake multiple stints at self-employment. Extant research on the relationship between entry modes and the persistence and outcomes of self-employment is inconclusive. This study investigates the relationship between wage employees’ initial mode of entry into self-employment and the duration of the subsequent first two stints of self-employment.

This study used a matched longitudinal sample of 9,550 employees who became majority owners of incorporated firms from 2005 to 2016.

The findings demonstrate that the initial mode of entry into self-employment matters for the first two stints at self-employment. Staged entry into self-employment was associated with a shorter first stint and became insignificant for the second stint. Staged entry into self-employment was positively related to the odds of becoming self-employed for the second time in the same firm.

Using a comprehensive and reliable dataset, the paper shifts focus from the aggregated onward journey of novice entrepreneurs (survival as the outcome) to the duration of their self-employment stints. By doing so, the paper offers insights into the process of becoming self-employed and the patterns associated with success/failure in entrepreneurship associated with self-employment duration.

This study investigates the mediating role of wage and workforce adjustments, along with the moderating influence of collective bargaining system and employees’ localization, in elucidating the relationship between the COVID-19 shock and workplace employee relations (ER) tension.

Survey data from 1,483 enterprises across 21 prefectural cities in China’s Guangdong Province are collected. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression.

The study reveals a positive correlation between the COVID-19 shock and workplace ER tension across crisis-hit enterprises, irrespective of their size or industrial sector. Wage reduction and mass layoffs emerge as significant mediators, while the collective bargaining system (CBS) and employees’ localization act as moderators.

The measurement of ER is limited in a single-item scale. Representation of China is also limited since the study exclusively focuses on Guangdong province. The study offers some contributions that firm-level data reveal the pathway through which COVID-19 creates ER tension.

On the one hand, the authors recommend the establishment of an effective communication system between employers and employees. On the other hand, managers should consider the role of informal institutions. Furthermore, the authors suggest implementing tailored strategies at the enterprise level.

Intense external shocks result in widespread layoffs and increased wage reductions within workplaces, and under such circumstances, formal or informal institutions may be insufficient to alleviate ER tension. In this case, the state authorities – including governments and other public agencies or bodies – are necessary to intervene in to organize tripartite dialogue.

While numerous emerging studies on COVID-19 explore how different countries manage industrial relations tension at the national level, few focus on ER at workplace level, particularly in developing countries. Understanding how workplace ER evolve during external shocks and identifying institutional measures to mitigate their negative impact is crucial for future crisis management.

Nearly half of the surveyed SMEs in Poland admitted that there is a very strong competition on the market where they operate. Among the neuralgic factors they point to the lack of qualified employees (PARP, 2021). Companies can use CSR policies to attract competent employees and retain valuable ones. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to find out whether, according to employees working in SME companies, an active CSR policy influences their employment-related decisions.

The data were collected through questionnaires received from 618 employees of 29 SMEs in Poland through questionnaires, which were analyzed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 and Microsoft Excel 2019.

The survey results provide evidence that CSR activities are an important factor in employees' decisions about potential employment and/or continued employment. In particular, the results show that almost all areas of CSR, except cooperation with the local communities, are important to employees. The survey also provides a clear answer as to which CSR initiatives benefiting employees of SME companies are the most important for them.

The conducted research fills a gap in CSR related studies on the SME sector in Poland. This is important, given the significant share of SME sector companies in the market in Poland and around the world.