Events and courses

Research Seminar

Labour Rationing: A New Approach to Measuring Labour Market Slack

This paper measures excess labor supply in equilibrium. Hiring shocks are induced—which employ 24 percent of the labor force in external month-long jobs—in Indian local labor markets. In peak months, wages increase instantaneously and local aggregate employment declines. In lean months, consistent with severe labor rationing, wages and aggregate employment are unchanged, with positive employment spillovers on remaining workers, indicating that over a quarter of labor supply is rationed. At least 24 percent of lean self-employment among casual workers occurs because they cannot find jobs. Consequently, traditional survey approaches mismeasure labor market slack. Rationing has broad implications for labor market analysis.

ILO Research Department Webinar

Gender and the labour market in Viet Nam

An analysis based on the Viet Nam Labour Force Survey

Book Launch

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation

Carl Benedikt Frey is the Oxford Martin Citi Fellow and co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. He explains In his new book how the history of technological revolutions can help us better understand economic and political polarization in the age of automation. Just as the Industrial Revolution eventually brought about extraordinary benefits for society, artificial intelligence systems have the potential to do the same. But Frey argues that this depends on how the short term is managed.

ILO Research Department Seminar

Direct and indirect effects of a subsidized apprenticeship program

Evaluations of employment programs usually focus on direct impacts on participants, but potential indirect effects are rarely quantified. This paper analyzes how the introduction of a subsidized apprenticeship program in Côte d’Ivoire impacts youths’ decision to enter apprenticeship and firms’ demand for apprentices in the short-term. The experiment simultaneously randomized whether apprenticeship positions opened by firms were filled by the program, and whether interested youths were assigned to a formal apprenticeship. This design allows for estimating whether individuals forgo other apprenticeship opportunities (windfall effects), and whether firms replace other apprentices with program participants (substitution effects). We find both effects to be moderate. A framework shows how they combine. Overall, 0.74 to 0.77 apprenticeship position is created per subsidized apprentice. This shows that the intervention expands access to apprenticeships and increases the net number of positions in firms. The subsidy offsets foregone labor earnings while youth are in formal apprenticeships. At the same time, the net value of work provided by apprentices increases, pointing to large indirect effects in firms.

ILO Research Department Seminar

Global Supply Chains, employment and production systems
ILO Research Department Seminar

Do jobs aid peace?

The seminar will discuss the contribution of employment programmes to peacebuilding in conflict-affected countries. Prof. Tilman Brück will present the findings from his recent publication titled “Jobs aid peace”, highlighting the main theories linking employment programmes and peace. The good practices for conducting evaluations of employment programmes in conflict-affected countries will also be examined.

ILO