The Russian Labour Market
The Russian Labour Market

Author: Vladimir Gimpelson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2002-07-15

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0585379564

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Labour markets are a central element of any transition from planned economy to market-oriented system. This groundbreaking book examines the plight of Russian workers and employers during the first decade of post-Soviet reforms. The authors argue that higher-than-expected labour market flexibility early in the transition provided an important cushion for workers who would have been displaced with little recourse to social protection. However, over time, this flexibility reduced pressure for enterprise restructuring and accommodated policy drift. Although many workers were quite mobile, often this translated into a loss of human capital for older enterprises_even potentially viable ones_and to OchurningO in the labour market, accompanied by only limited restructuring. There was little job creation, labour hoarding persisted, and many workers saw their wages eroded by inflation and late payment of wages. The authors show this situation was largely the result of insufficient structural reforms, poor institutional development, and misplaced incentives. First providing an overview of the economic situation, key labour market trends, and the institutional situation during the 1990s, the book then reviews labour market dynamics. The authors assess changes in OoldO jobs at former state enterprises and evaluate OnewO job creation, mostly in private businesses. They examine the evolution of wages and the availability of social protection to workers. A special thematic section considers the political economy of labour market policy that brought the ORussian approachO to labour market adjustment to life. The conclusion presents an integrated picture of the Russian labour market in the aftermath of the early transition period and highlights the implications of the experience for current policy.

Offshoring and the Internationalization of Employment
Offshoring and the Internationalization of Employment

Author: Peter Auer

Publisher: International Labour Organization

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9789290147831

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This collection of papers examines key trends in the internationalisation of employment, drawing on the proceedings of an ILO conference held in Annecy, France in April 2005. The papers focus on three related issues: the impacts of trade and investment abroad, including the offshoring of production of goods and services, and effects on the winners and losers in terms of employment; adjustment methods for coping with the short and medium term problems related to the globalisation of employment; and the importance of international instruments to help ensure a level playing field in trade and promote development, drawing on established rights and international labour standards.

Frontiers in the Economics of Gender
Frontiers in the Economics of Gender

Author: Francesca Bettio

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2009-11-24

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0415569524

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Gender is now recognized as a fundamental organizing principle for economic as well as social life, and related research has grown at an unprecedented pace in the recent decades across branches of economics. The volume takes stock of this research, proposes novel analytical frameworks and outlines further research directions. It grew out of the Summer School of International Research in Pontignano (University of Siena) that traditionally brings together the most representative scholars in the chosen field. The thirteen essays included in the volume cover recent advances in gender related issues across disciplinary branches, from Economic History and the History of Economic Thought to Macroeconomics, Household Economics, the Economics of Care Work, Labour Economics, Institutional and Experimental Economics. The volume is primarily addressed to graduate students in Economics and is an essential companion for researchers in the area of Gender Economics. As most essays are written in a non-technical language it is also of interest to a wider audience, including specialists in Sociology, Demography and History.

Is Russia Restructuring?
Is Russia Restructuring?

Author: Harry G. Broadman

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13:

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The authors explore the labor dynamics of Russian enterprise restructuring, empirically assessing how patterns of job creation and destruction are related to various aspects of enterprise restructuring across firms in different sectors and regions, and to different forms, sizes, vintages, and performance characteristics of ownership. Evidence from case studies - based on more than 50 site visits in 2000 - suggests that jobs have been destroyed, but only to a limited degree in some sectors and regions, largely because of institutional and incentive constraints and a still-widespread "socialist" corporate culture. Jobs have been created - particularly in sectors where devaluation had the most pronounced effect on important substitution and export promotion - but only slowly, mostly for lack of skilled workers and because regional mobility is limited. Labor turnover appears higher within regions than across regions. Newly available data for 1996 - 99 (provided by Goskomstat) for about 128,000 enterprises in 24 industrial sectors in Russia's 89 regions indicates that the typical firm has experienced only modest downsizing - about 12 percent - in number of employees. Smaller firms have entered, and larger, mature businesses have exited some sectors. Except for a lull in 1998, the rate of job creation has steadily increased and the rate of job destruction has declined, dropping substantially in 1998 - 99. "Voluntary" worker separations remain the main - and growing - form of layoff, and the proportion of layoffs through redundancies is shrinking (now about 4 percent of total separations). Firm size and net employment growth are not statistically related, but form of ownership seems to matter. Firm size is also statistically correlated (positively) with profitability, but restructuring through changes in net employment growth appears not to be. It seems Russian restructuring needs to become more efficient.

Putin's Labor Dilemma
Putin's Labor Dilemma

Author: Stephen Crowley

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 150175629X

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In Putin's Labor Dilemma, Stephen Crowley investigates how the fear of labor protest has inhibited substantial economic transformation in Russia. Putin boasts he has the backing of workers in the country's industrial heartland, but as economic growth slows in Russia, reviving the economy will require restructuring the country's industrial landscape. At the same time, doing so threatens to generate protest and instability from a key regime constituency. However, continuing to prop up Russia's Soviet-era workplaces, writes Crowley, could lead to declining wages and economic stagnation, threatening protest and instability. Crowley explores the dynamics of a Russian labor market that generally avoids mass unemployment, the potentially explosive role of Russia's monotowns, conflicts generated by massive downsizing in "Russia's Detroit" (Tol'yatti), and the rapid politicization of the truck drivers movement. Labor protests currently show little sign of threatening Putin's hold on power, but the manner in which they are being conducted point to substantial chronic problems that will be difficult to resolve. Putin's Labor Dilemma demonstrates that the Russian economy must either find new sources of economic growth or face stagnation. Either scenario—market reforms or economic stagnation—raises the possibility, even probability, of destabilizing social unrest.