Showing papers on "Workforce published in 1978"

Fixed Costs, Employment and Labour Demand over the Cycle

Abstract: In any decentralized economy the vast majority of firms are faced with considerable variation in the demand for their output. There are many methods of dealing with such variation; for example, firms can vary the price of output, the level of inventories or the level of production. If this last course is chosen, there will have to be changes in the level of employment of factors of production, in particular, variations in the number of employees, the hours that they work, the amount of capital and the number of hours of the week for which it is operated. The changes that the firm actually chooses to make will, of course, depend on the technology of production and the prices of the factors. In addition, however, the firm must take note of the costs that are associated with the changes themselves. For example, increases in working hours for existing employees may be very cheap to bring into operation, whereas the costs attendant on hiring a new employee may be considerable and that of rapidly installing a new production line probably prohibitive. Since we shall be concentrating on labour demand it is worth examining the particular costs associated with the engagement or disengagement of workers. On the hiring side there are the costs of finding and screening new employees as well as the costs incurred in the form of lost production while they are settling into their new jobs. Firing costs may include redundancy payments, costs imposed by trade unions opposed to the laying off of workers, and the legal and other difficulties caused by employment protection legislation.' One point worth noting is that there seems little reason to suppose costs per worker associated with either hiring or firing increase with the rate at which employees flow in or out. Indeed, given the large fixed costs associated with personnel and legal departments, it may even be more reasonable to suppose that the average cost of adjusting the workforce diminishes rather than increases with the speed of adjustment.2 These costs of changing the workforce are a crucial element in determining the structure of the demand for labour in response to variations in the demand for output. This is the general question to which this paper is addressed and in what follows we hope to elucidate certain aspects of it by doing two things. First, we shall construct a model to explain the firm's demand for labour when it is facing expected cyclical variations in the demand for its product. The reason why such a model is required is that the majority of existing dynamic models of factor demand simply analyse the optimal adjustment of the firm towards a static equilibrium and it is very difficult to deduce from

Productivity Programs in the Federal Government

Abstract: 1. Projections were made made at a symposium on "The Future of Productivity," Washington, D.C., November 16-17, 1976. 2. Data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, covering 67 per cent of the federal workforce, estimate an annual productivity increase of 1.3 per cent for FY 1976. 3. The public sector committee is made up of appointed and elected federal, state, and local officials, representatives of labor, academia, business, and the citizenry at large.

Writing the History of Australian Women

Abstract: One of the key issues facing students of women's history and politics is the nature of the relationship between sex, class and status in under standing the position of women in contemporary society. Approaches adopted by researchers to the problem include: the analysis of 'women's work' or domestic labour and its role in specifying male-female relation ships; and the study of the origins and nature of sex-segregation in the workforce, in an attempt to understand the nature of the labour process and the foundations of divisions within the working class.2 The sex-class dilemma is also confronting women's movements' strategists in western capitalist societies. Consequently, it has become fashionable to reject, as a guide to theory and practice, the notion of 'sisterhood', the rallying cry of the early second wave feminists, and demand that it be replaced with an holistic analysis of women's oppression.3 This rejection reflects the belief that feminism has reached a cross-roads.

The New Structure of Labour Law in Britain

Abstract: The privilege of giving a lecture in honour of so great a jurist as Lionel Cohen demands of the lecturer a fitting and challenging subject matter. My tribute to his memory takes the form of choosing such a topic. For the structure of Labour Law in Britain today has the appearance of an absurd paradox.On the one hand, labour law still rests upon the traditional concept of the primacy of “voluntary” collective bargaining between employers and independent trade unions. Other than in exceptional war-time periods, the law, both in statutes and in certain areas of judge-made common law, recognises the priority to be accorded to voluntary agreements and arrangements, even to that “custom and practice” which is at the heart of the way things really work on the British factory floor. The law does not regulate the pattern of “bargaining units” as in the United States; it regulates neither the nature nor the administration of the collective agreement, even on interpretation of “rights”. as in so many European countries and in Israel; it establishes no national minimum wage. The law does not “intervene”. it is said, in industrial relations.Even the exceptions prove the rule. Nearly four million workers of our 24 million workforce have their terms of employment legally determined by Wages Councils set up by Ministerial Order under statute. These bodies, first established in 1909, have on them employers' and workers' representatives with independent members.

Preplanning the integration of women into the workforce

Abstract: The number of females entering career areas previously stereotyped as “male only” is increasing in both the public and private sectors. Few would argue that females lack the intellectual capability or moral right to enter and succeed. However, it is rather well established that there are physical differences. These differences could mean that existing tools, equipment, and certain jobs are inadequate for women workers and could hamper their achievement of success. This paper is the end result of a conversation with a female Air Force electrician who indicated that she, as well as other females in the craft skills, were having some difficulty with the tools and equipment they were provided. The conversation led to the undertaking of a study of the adequacy of equipment used by female craft workers in the U. S. Air Force. This paper is a synthesis of the study and interviews I conducted; it is presented in the hope that it will aid human engineers and managers to preplan the integration of female workers in...

The New South Wales medical registration work force survey 1976.

Abstract: A medical workforce survey was conducted in conjunction with the 1976 registration of doctors in New South Wales. Its prime aim was to provide information on the number of doctors required to be trained by the medical schools. The main findings of the survey are presented; in particular, current and predicted values of the doctor/population ratio are given. The status of this parameter is discussed.

Reported alcohol consumption, and attitudes of managerial and non-managerial employees, in a study of five industries on Clydeside

Abstract: In a study of five major employers on Clydeside, individual interviews were conducted with 576 employees. During each interview, the respondent filled in two self-completion questionnaires, each employing the same twelve semantic-differential items. In the first questionnaire, respondents described the people who worked at the same level in the firm as themselves. In the second, those in management positions described the lower workforce, and these latter described those in management positions. Answers were subjected to principal components analysis followed by Varimax rotation; then factor scores were derived for five ‘drinking’ groups according to reported alcohol consumption. Results suggested that managers who drank most heavily tended to make the most favourable judgements of the lower workforce, and also rated the lower workforce as not especially tough. On the other hand, a group of abstinent managers made certain unfavourable judgements of the lower workforce, and also made the most extreme ‘toughness’ judgements. If such findings were found to be general, a possible conclusion is that any alcoholism campaign in industry might benefit from the recruitment of at least some heavy-drinking managers, since these seem to be favourably disposed to the lower workforce. Because the study possibly has broader implications for industry generally, replication studies in different geographical areas are of considerable importance.In a study of five major employers on Clydeside, individual interviews were conducted with 576 employees. During each interview, the respondent filled in two self-completion questionnaires, each employing the same twelve semantic-differential items. In the first questionnaire, respondents described the people who worked at the same level in the firm as themselves. In the second, those in management positions described the lower workforce, and these latter described those in management positions. Answers were subjected to principal components analysis followed by Varimax rotation; then factor scores were derived for five ‘drinking’ groups according to reported alcohol consumption. Results suggested that managers who drank most heavily tended to make the most favourable judgements of the lower workforce, and also rated the lower workforce as not especially tough. On the other hand, a group of abstinent managers made certain unfavourable judgements of the lower workforce, and also made the most extreme ‘toughness’ judgements. If such findings were found to be general, a possible conclusion is that any alcoholism campaign in industry might benefit from the recruitment of at least some heavy-drinking managers, since these seem to be favourably disposed to the lower workforce. Because the study possibly has broader implications for industry generally, replication studies in different geographical areas are of considerable importance.

Assessing Spoken English on the Shop Floor.

Abstract: During the 1950s and 1960s the excessive demand for labour in industrialised Western Europe produced an acceptance of any available manpower in industry. As a consequence, in areas that experienced immigration, a large proportion of the indigenous workforce was either dispersed or had job aspirations raised and now evidences a relutance to undertake low level work. Consequently the migrants were and still are recruited for repetitive and menial work, as well as work involving anti‐social hours. As a consequence of the job level restrictions there was cultural clustering in particular areas of the shop floor which led to communication problems. The following example is typical of those problems management was having to meet.

Visiting Aides Training Program

Abstract: This article describes a hospital-sponsored service program in which mature members of the community are given a course of supervised field training in the home care of recently discharged patients. The program benefits the trainee, the patient, and the general taxpayer.