Job Creation: The Role of Labor Market Institutions

Insufficient job creation and the decreasing quality of jobs are fundamental social problems throughout the industrialized world. This impressive book uses a multidisciplinary approach to provide an accessible and wide-ranging assessment of the effect of changes in labour market institutions on the creation of jobs.This book brings together a distinguished group of contributors from the fields of economics, management and industrial relations. The authors rigorously examine how labour market institutions shape employment performance and assess issues such as unemployment benefits, job security provisions and collective bargaining. These institutions are found to be key determinants of unemployment rates and other important social and economic indicators such as activity rates, and the share of part-time and short-term contract jobs. The authors also focus on public policy and the reform of current institutions and assess their effect on the adaptation of the labour force to the changing demands of international markets. In particular, several chapters analyse the impact of information technologies on the organization of firms and their internal and external labour markets. Regulatory changes are proposed to facilitate the adjustment and competitiveness of both companies and workers in order to increase the creation of jobs.Job Creation will be required reading for scholars of labour economics, labour markets and public policy as well as practitioners and policymakers.