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In neo‐classical economic theory labour is a commodity and the ultimate value of the employer's services is determined by the sales value of the product of these services: the cost of supply reflects both the disutility of work for the recruit and his equalisation of net advantages between jobs. For modern labour economists the assumption that entrepreneurs require identical inputs of labour and the new recruits will therefore possess similar skills (the conditions of free competition) is an unrealistic one. Hence segmental labour market theory has grown out of the need to explain differences between shared needs and commonalities within each group of consumers (employers) on the one hand and suppliers (employees) on the other. In this way it has been possible to carry on assuming the existence of perfect competition on both sides of the market within the boundaries of labour markets thus defined.

This paper attempts to discover whether or not social networks work in the same way in different sectors of the labour market in the same society, using data from the 2008 Asian Social Survey. Labour markets in some societies are segmented; there are two segments in the labour market, namely, the core sector and the peripheral sector. The practices of each sector differs from the others. Some sectors employ CME labour markets, while others favour LME labour markets (Kanbayashi and Takenoshita, 2014). In other words, we can find both CME and LME labour market in one society.

Since Granovetter’s (1973) pioneer study, scholars are interested in investigating in what way social network influence our job searching outcomes. However, these researchers have not yet yielded consistent results. Scholars argue that the institutional context of labour market can shape the network impacts on our job search outcome (Chen, 2014; Chua, 2011).

Surprisingly, this paper finds that there is no room for the use of personal contact in the public sector in both China and Japan. But, mean status is positively related to annual income in the private companies sector in both Japan and China. The significant influences of mean status in the private sectors in both China and Japan reflect the reinforcing of existing social inequality structure. This is because as the status of contact can facilitate respondents' job attainment process, those who are already in higher social status are more likely than those who are in the bottom of the social strata, to get a better job with the help from their network members.

The above findings show us that social network can exert various impacts on people's job searching process even in the same society. This is because it is possible that the labour market are segmented. These segments have very different practices. This difference attributes to the inconsistent findings of network effects on occupational attainment process. Therefore, it is essential to locate which labour market respondents are in, and the features of this labour market. This can help us know more about the use and effectiveness of network in different types of labour markets.

This paper analyses the effects of both training and overeducation on upward mobility in the internal labour market, the professional market and the “supplementary labour market”. The latter segment can be considered as a broadly defined secondary labour market as it is not restricted to the low‐level unskilled jobs only. This broader definition – also found in initial segmentation theory – allows for the changed character of the secondary labour market in the industrialized countries. As expected, “career training” influences upward mobility positively. However, contrary to the predictions of segmentation theory, particularly in the supplementary labour market career training is a means of gaining promotion to a higher level job. Overeducation also affects upward mobility positively, which indicates that overeducation is to some extent a temporary phenomenon at the individual level. However, this also holds in particular in the supplementary segment of the labour market. The estimation results show that the supplementary labour market is less of a dead end than the segmentation theory predicts and is a more valuable place to get training than has been recognized. The supplementary market probably plays an important role in the transition process between initial education and the labour market. Although workers may be initially overeducated in their first jobs, a supplementary segment job could be an attractive step towards reaching a more suitable position in the labour market.

The purpose of this paper is to characterise the position of highly educated African migrants in the Finnish labour market and to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on that position.

The paper is based on the biographical work stories of 17 highly educated African migrant workers in four occupation areas in Finland: healthcare, cleaning, restaurant and transport. The sample was partly purposively and partly theoretically determined. The authors used content driven thematic analysis technique, combined with by the biographical narrative concept of turning points.

Using the case of highly educated African migrants in the Finnish labour market, the authors show how student migration policies reinforce a pattern of division of labour and occupations that allocate migrant workers to typical low skilled low status occupations in the secondary sector regardless of level of education, qualification and work experience. They also show how the unique labour and skill demands of the COVID-19 pandemic incidentally made these typical migrant occupations essential, resulting in increased employment and work security for this group of migrant workers.

This research and the authors’ findings are limited in scope owing to sample size and methodology. To improve applicability of findings, future studies could expand the scope of enquiry using e.g. quantitative surveys and include other stakeholders in the study group.

The paper adds to the knowledge on how migration policies contribute to labour market dualisation and occupational segmentation in Finland, illustrated by the case of highly educated African migrant workers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of employers as “institutional” factors in the creation of segmentation in the labour market. Industrial structure defines segments of the labour market (the employer) based on the nature of demand, and with the impact on the individual workers or groups based on their personal characteristics.

Empirical work is within the Dublin labour market, which experienced the largest increase in availability of migrant workers under immigration policies of the Celtic Tiger state. Focused on the sectors of catering, cleaning and security as low‐skilled service sector providers, the analysis is based on 24 semi‐structured interviews with employers selected based on a database of a cross‐section of all employers in the selected sectors in Dublin.

Semi‐structured interviews reinforce state policies as key institutional factor underlying migrant labour trends and experiences, but perspectives of the employers in low‐end service industries reveal additional insights. In addition to using migrant labour as a means of cost cutting, the daily actions of employers reveal cultural stereotyping of workers, making them an elemental component “exploiting” the trends facilitated by state immigration policies.

Although a large body of research on migration into Ireland during the Celtic Tiger years is available, little of it has focused on labour market processes. More broadly, in attempting to understand labour market processes and the creation of segmentation there needs to be a triangulation of processes of supply, demand and state policies; and employers are key players in shaping demand and exploiting supply trends.

The critique of the neo‐classical theory of the labour market has been growing in strength in recent years. Two main strands can be identified. The American traditions emphasise the role of the production process of firms or industries, either in terms of its task requirements (Doeringer and Piore 1971), or the mode of labour process control (Edwards 1979). The British tradition emphasises the role of trade unions and the character of the industrial relations system (Rubery 1978; Nolan 1983). By looking at one industry — construction — and thereby controlling for production process and industrial relations system, this article suggests that firm type, in interaction with the product market, is also an important factor in generating non competing labour markets.

This chapter presents an investigation into the theory of labour market segmentation and income inequality in the Ghanaian mining sector. Mining activity especially gold mining has been a significant component of exports as well as employment and income earning in the three major mining regions of Ghana. While income growth is an economic benefit, the high incomes associated with the mining sector may lead to greater income inequality. This chapter provides an analysis of mining activity and income inequality in the Western, Eastern, and Ashanti regions of Ghana. The application of labour market segmentation and the Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) for personal income are found to be significantly associated with the type and levels of mining employment. However, this observation is not linear as income inequality initially increases with mining activity before decreasing at medium to high levels of mining employment, thus following a Kuznets curve pattern. Segregating datasets for indigenous and expatriate staff reveals very different patterns of income inequality. It poignantly increases with indigenous and/or local community personnel relative to expatriate technical personnel at high levels of mining employment; income inequality is lower among the local community residents relative to nationals from other regions and/or from neighbouring countries. This means segmented labour markets (SLM) within the mining industry are likely to be a problem as they result in increased income inequality among locales relative to foreign expatriates.

David M. Gordon advanced labour economics with his theory of labour market segmentation, in which jobs rather than the marginal productivity of individual workers were the unit of analysis. He advanced economic historiography and macroeconomics by conceptualising social structures of accumulation – a framework built on the foundation of his institutionalist training and enriched by his study of Marxist economics. By appropriating methods from other social science disciplines into econometrics, he augmented empirical analysis in economics. He was a founding member of the Union of Radical Political Economics and its journal, the Review of Radical Political Economics – that advanced and promoted heterodox, radical, and Marxist economists in the United States. His contributions to economics, to organised labour, and to the New School for Social Research, where I studied with him, were stunning.

Part 1 lays out some context about the New School Graduate Faculty where Gordon taught. Part 2 explores what historical forces, including his family, led to his expansive creativity. Part 3 summarises how he expanded labour economics to include the relations as well as the technology of production, linked his understanding of the production process to a historical materialist view of labour in the United States, then extended that to econometric analyses of the US macroeconomy. Part 4 presents a bibliometric analysis to provide some idea of the impact of his work. I end with some concluding remarks.

The aim of this article is to analyse how different policies and actors have structured the current migrant labour regime in the Finnish construction sector and to discuss the consequences for migrants. Our study shows that a strong industrial relations system such as in Finland is able to curb the posting of workers regime (the most disadvantageous for migrant workers). The position of labour migrants has become more diverse in the segmented labour market, although it remains inferior compared to that of the natives. Consideration of the policy development revolving around the changing migrant labour regimes constitutes the first part of the analysis and is based on government and trade union officials’ accounts. The more substantial part of the study draws upon biographical interviews with Estonian construction workers and analyses the division of migrant labour according to their employment in four ‘patterns of firm ownership’ that range from the most unfavourable to most favourable position: workers posted by Estonian firms; workers employed by firms registered in Finland but operated by Estonians; self-employed/small business owners and workers employed by Finnish firms. The structuring of the regime according to the pattern of firm ownership can be interpreted as a manifestation of employers’ intentional strategies to adapt to or avoid national regulations and to some extent as also reflecting workers’ individual and collective agency.

In the Northern Ireland context, even though the debate about whether Catholics have experienced discrimination has raged for over two decades, there has been little attempt to relate the wide‐ranging and sophisticated USA debate to circumstances within the province. Takes the first steps to redress this shortcoming by outlining the key themes in the USA debate about unequal labour market treatment.