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This study is an effort to explore a relationship between benefits of schemes (BoS) on the job satisfaction among handloom weavers. The weavers who are engaged in this work however face lot of challenges in terms of remuneration and working conditions. The government has been immense with various schemes that cater to the work-related problems. This paper aims to understand whether work-related support can be a predictor for job satisfaction in this context.

A cross-sectional survey design was used where 335 handloom weavers randomly participated in the study. Questionnaire was administered and scale was developed and validated for the measurement of BoS by using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The effect of the benefits on the job satisfaction was investigated by using structural equation modelling on AMOS 21 platform.

The outcome suggested that the BoS significantly affects the job satisfaction and a possible predictor. This which was indicated by the value of r^2, i.e.0.38 at significance level p < 0.001.

The study suggests a method for analyzing the schemes/policies in the light of the benefits that schemes intend to deliver. This would help in making suitable modifications in the schemes order to have wider outreach and large-scale inclusion of the beneficiaries.

The study can be useful for the policymakers to further strengthen the features of the schemes. They might work in direction of inclusion of more handloom weavers in the framework of the schemes.

The effects of the work-related policies on job satisfaction is still in nascent stage, so this work is all about exploration in that area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore inhalation levels and dermal exposure to toluene among printing workers who wore no personal protective equipment; it is conducted in a plastic bag factory. Using a charcoal cloth pad (CCP) as a dermal sampler to assess skin permeation of liquid toluene is also investigated.

In total, 27 stationary air samples as well as urine and dermal samples were collected over 9 days from 11 printing workers. Six pieces of CCP were wrapped on each of the workers’ fingers for the dermal sample collection. Air samples were collected and analyzed according to NIOSH No. 1501, and 65 post-shift urine samples were collected and analyzed using gas chromatography equipped with headspace sampler (GC-HS/FID). Multiple linear regression was employed to analyze the association between the studied variables.

The mean (SD) urinary toluene (UTol) level was 13.42 (9.72) ug/L. Toluene on the CCP (TolCCP) was a meaningful predictor for UTol (p-value=0.027) with r and r² values of 0.441 and 0.195, respectively. The r and r² of the model using the toluene time-weighted average concentrations in air were 0.739 and 0.546, respectively. The absorbed dose of toluene determined from the TolCCP ranged from 1.05 to 91.94 mg, accounting for 12.3 percent of the threshold limit value (TLV).

Dermal exposure was insignificant when workers wore respirators, but when not, dermal absorption could contribute to the overall uptake and exposure above the TLV. Appropriate gloves should be assigned to the workers to reduce dermal exposure to toluene.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the question “In what order of magnitude does the comfort and performance improvement lie with the use of a cooling vest for construction workers?”.

The use of personal cooling systems, in the form of cooling vests, is not only intended to reduce the heat load, in order to prevent disruption of the thermoregulation system of the body, but also to improve work performance. A calculation study was carried out on the basis of four validated mathematical models, namely a cooling vest model, a thermophysiological human model, a dynamic thermal sensation model and a performance loss model for construction workers.

The use of a cooling vest has a significant beneficial effect on the thermal sensation and the loss of performance, depending on the thermal load on the body.

Each cooling vest can be characterized on the basis of the maximum cooling power (Pmax; in W/m²), the cooling capacity (Auc; in Wh/m2) and the time (tc; in minutes) after which the cooling power is negligible. In order to objectively compare cooling vests, a (preferably International and/or European) standard/guideline must be compiled to determine the cooling power and the cooling capacity of cooling vests.

It is recommended to implement the use of cooling vests in the construction process so that employees can use them if necessary or desired.

Climate change, resulting in global warming, is one of the biggest problems of present times. Rising outdoor temperatures will continue in the 21st century, with a greater frequency and duration of heat waves. Some regions of the world are more affected than others. Europe is one of the regions of the world where rising global temperatures will adversely affect public health, especially that of the labor force, resulting in a decline in labor productivity. It will be clear that in many situations air conditioning is not an option because it does not provide sufficient cooling or it is a very expensive investment; for example, in the situation of construction work. In such a situation, personal cooling systems, such as cooling vests, can be an efficient and financially attractive solution to the problem of discomfort and heat stress.

The value of the study lies in the link between four validated mathematical models, namely a cooling vest model, a thermophysiological human model, a dynamic thermal sensation model and a performance loss model for construction workers.

Informed by social representation theory, the study aims to explore how marketing workers represent their activities on social media.

A naturalistic data set of 17,553 messages posted on Twitter by advertising workers was collected. A sample of over 1,000 unique messages from this data set, incorporating all external links and images, was analysed inductively using structured thematic analysis.

Advertising workers represent marketing work as a series of fun yet constrained activities involving relationships with clients and colleagues. They engage in cognitive polyphasia by evaluating these productive differences in both a positive and negative light.

The study marks a novel use of social representation theory and innovative social media analysis. Further research should explore these relations in greater depth by considering the networks that marketing workers create on social media and establish how, when and why marketing workers turn to social media in their everyday activities.

Marketing workers choose to represent aspects of their work to one another, using social media. Marketing managers should support such activities and consider social media as a way to understand the lives and experiences of marketing workers.

Marketing researchers have embraced digital media as a route to understanding consumers. This study demonstrates the value of analysing digital media to develop an understanding of marketing work. It sheds new light on the ways marketing workers create social relationships and enables marketing managers to understand and observe the social aspects of effective marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of private and public initiatives (financial literacy, entrepreneurship, remote work and government aid) on individual job loss and decrease in income during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru.

The authors used an unbalanced panel data analysis with the National Household Survey for 2019–2020. The hypotheses are tested with a probit panel data model since the dependent variables are binary.

The study findings indicate that financial preparedness reduced the probability of having a decrease in income, but only to informal workers in metropolitan Lima. Furthermore, entrepreneurship helped mainly female informal workers to reduce their probability of becoming unemployed in metropolitan Lima. Besides, the implementation of remote work as a substitute of face-to-face work was not enough to avoid the decrease in income in the case of informal workers and it was only effective to avoid unemployment in the case of formal workers in metropolitan Lima. Finally, public aid proved to be instrumental in mitigating the decrease in income, but only to informal workers in Metropolitan Lima.

The study results only apply for the first year of the pandemic.

Policymakers should focus on increasing the financial preparedness of informal workers, especially in provinces.

Policymakers must expand unemployment benefits, and design public aid programs targeting informal workers in provinces.

This is the first study that analyses the impact of private and public initiatives on the decrease in income and unemployment situation of Peruvian individuals during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute original evidence about the conditions for formal and informal contracts for commodities and labour in the waste economy of a South Indian town.

Field research was exploratory, based on snowball sampling and urban traversing. The analysis follows capital and labour in the sub-circuits of capital generating waste in production, distribution, consumption, the production of labour and the reproduction of society.

Regardless of legal regulation, which is selectively enforced, formal contracts are limited to active inspection regimes; direct transactions with or within the state; and long-distance transactions. Formal labour contracts are least incomplete for state employment, and for relatively scarce skilled labour in the private sector.

The research design does not permit quantified generalisations.

Waste management technology evaluations neglect the social costs of displacing a large informal labour force.

While slowly dissolving occupational barriers of untouchability, the waste economy is a low-status labour absorber of last resort, exit from which is extremely difficult.

The first systematic exploration of formal and informal contracts in an Indian small-town waste economy.

A fast-changing environment entails several reflections about skills and attitudes required to face the increasing complexity brought by the “glocal, liquid and networked” world in which workers operate (Bauman, 2003; Clarke, 2017). In the literature, an increased attention has been devoted to the impact of interpersonal skills and personal characteristics on employability (Heckman and Kautz, 2012; Succi, 2019; Wheeler, 2016). In this context, the so-called soft skills become of crucial importance, but a lack of academic attention devoted to their development, and a deficit of companies in integrating soft skills in their selection, induction and training processes have been identified (Hurrell, 2016). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An exploratory study has been designed to describe the tools in use to assess soft skills, during the recruitment process and those to develop soft skills of graduates, during their first years on the job. In January 2017, two symmetrical online questionnaires have been sent to 500 HR managers and 240 graduates of a European business school, in Italy and Germany.

Results show that graduates and managers describe differently the use of tools to develop graduates’ soft skills. The large majority of HR managers indicate they offer formal training to young graduates and that they are involved in the performance appraisal sessions, while only 22 percent of students confirm they receive formal training and only 26 percent declare to be inserted in a performance appraisal process. Moreover, concerning the assessment of soft skills during the selection process, significant differences between Italian and German companies emerged.

This research constitutes the first step to acknowledge the lack of initiatives devoted to soft skills development, despite their rising importance for the job market.

Findings allow initiating a discussion about a strategic topic in human resources management: whose responsibility is it to develop soft skills? Should graduates, higher education or companies fill the gap? The study can be extended to other types of higher education institutions, and a qualitative research could deepen the understanding of root causes of the differences identified.

The impact on youth employment, reduction of labor skills mismatch and improvement of managerial practices could be interesting social implications of the study.

While previous research has predominantly focused on higher education executives and HR managers, this paper’s contribution consists in involving young graduates in the reflection on employability.

This paper aims to estimate the effect of agglomeration on the probability of being an informal firm in Cali, Colombia. Informal firms produce legal goods but do not comply with official regulations. This issue is relevant because, similar to other developing countries, the informal sector in Colombia employs more than 50 per cent of the workforce. The results of this study demonstrate that one standard deviation increase in agglomeration reduces by 52 per cent the probability of being informal. Results are consistent with the idea that informal firms benefit less from agglomeration because of legal restrictions that block the relationship with formal firms.

The objective of the present paper is to estimate the effect of agglomeration on the probability that a firm – given a location – chooses to be informal. The authors deal with endogeneity issues by using soil information related to earthquake risk, which reduces the height of buildings and therefore increases the cost of agglomeration. The analysis focuses on Cali, Colombia, where the informal sector employs 60 per cent of the workforce. The registration of economic activities is used as a criterion to identify informal firms, in such a way that the percentage of informal firms is 42 per cent.

The authors find that the effect of agglomeration is strongly negative. The probability of being informal diminishes by 52 per cent when agglomeration increases by one standard deviation. Results in this paper shed light on how formal firms tend to be localized in high-density commercial and industrial areas, while informal firms are localized in low-density and peripheral areas where the land for production is cheaper and where they can avoid the control of authorities.

Theory argues that spatial production externalities and commuting costs are among the main forces that shape the city’s internal structure. Externalities include effects that increase firms’ production, and therefore workers’ income, when the size of the local economy grows. The authors now have strong evidence that firms’ productivity is positively related with the volume of nearby employment. Most of the empirical findings concern firms in the formal sector and, accordingly, the literature says little about the effect of agglomeration on informal firms’ location. However, this effect is crucial for developing countries where informal work is the main option for less-educated workers facing unemployment.

The electronics industry is a key industry in South Korea. To improve efficiency and maintain a competitive edge in fast-paced technological age it is critical to synchronize production supply with market demand. This paper focuses on the strategies which make the “just in time” production system within the electronic supply chain. The presented case study of Samsung Electronics Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) Inbound Logistics provides a solid example of process integration in the areas of: packaging, transportation and information sharing. The problems faced by Samsung Electronics in the early 2000’s were a direct result of an imbalance between increased traffic/demand and existing production capacity. The most detrimental of these problems caused delays in supply, shortage of space in the hub center and the bottlenecking of supply transportation. This paper demonstrates how Samsung Electronics reexamined and systematically streamlined their existing processes and how they successfully integrated “lean thinking” strategies to all areas of TFT-LCD production. As a result of the integration of these strategies, Samsung Electronics began using a line-to-line packing system which focused on packing items in a group using a standardized, returnable packing system. Additionally, they opted to replace their paper invoice system for an improved transportation system through which a data could reflect flows of information and materials in real time. The integration of these strategies gave Samsung Electronics a new approach to TFT-LCD Inbound Logistics which allowed them to overcome their dilemmas and resulted in successful outcomes, decreased lead times, higher quality products and an reduction in total costs.

Hand foot mouth disease (HFMD) is an emerging disease caused by Enterovirus. HFMD usually occurs in South-East Asian countries including Thailand. Thailand has been indicated as one of the countries having high epidemic rate in children less than five years of age, particularly in the northern regions. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A qualitative method was used to extract information from 48 informants from two different areas; high and low epidemic areas of HFMD. Question guidelines were developed from literature review and viewed by three external experts in the field before use. Interviews took place in a private and confidential room. Each interview lasted approximately 50 minutes.

There are no policies regarding HFMD control in both high and low epidemic areas of HFMD. The staff at sub-district local government level did not have the necessary qualifications for HFMD control. Additionally, staff were not stable, and there was a lack of a disease control team. Antiseptics for cleaning day care centers (DCC) were not effective for disease control; most DCC use Dettol®, soap, dishwashing liquid, detergent and water for cleaning the environment. These antiseptics do not include chlorine making it ineffective in destroying the virus.

The sub-district local government should be concerned about HFMD control; the staff should have the necessary qualifications suitable for disease control. Standard and practical HFMD control guideline should be set up and used in DCC.