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The rise to prominence of the service sector - heralded over half a century ago as the great hope for the twenty-first century - has come to fruition. In many cases, employment in the service sector now outnumbers that in manufacturing sectors, and it is accepted that in all developed countries, the service sector is the only one in which employment will grow in future. The reasons for this is the subject of much controversy and debate, the outcomes of which are not merely of academic interest but of decisive importance for economic policy and the quality of working and living conditions in future. In order to examine these various arguments, research teams from eight European countries worked together for three years on a comparative study of the evolution of service sector employment in EU member states. They also investigated working and employment conditions in five very different service industries (banking, retailing, hospitals, IT services and care of the elderly) in a number of countries, and the results of their research are presented in this informative new collection, of interest to students academics and researchers involved in all aspects of industrial economics.
Including international comparative analysis alongside national case studies, this volume offers a wealth of information on the new trends which have emerged over the past decades - all of which were discussed at the recent 9th International Symposium on Working Time, Paris (2004). It looks at the increasing use of results-based employment relationships for managers and professionals, and the increasing fragmentation of time to more closely tailor staffing needs to customer requirements (e.g., short-hours, part-time work). Moreover, as operating/opening hours rapidly expand toward a 24-hour and 7-day economy, the book considers how this has resulted in a growing diversification, decentraliza...
John Maynard Keynes expected that around the year 2030 people would only work 15 hours a week. In the mid-1960s, Jean Fourastié still anticipated the introduction of the 30-hour week in the year 2000, when productivity would continue to grow at an established pace. Productivity growth slowed down somewhat in the 1970s and 1980s, but rebounded in the 1990s with the spread of new information and communication technologies. The knowledge economy, however, did not bring about a jobless future or a world without work, as some scholars had predicted. With few exceptions, work hours of full-time employees have hardly fallen in the advanced capitalist countries in the last three decades, while in a...
This volume brings together and expands on a body of research that I began in the early 1960s and have continued up to the present. It deals mainly with shiftwork-work that is performed during other than normal daytime hours. Shiftwork is a characteristic of economic life in the United States and abroad that has increased in importance over the years; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one out of five full-time and part-time employees in the United States works on shifts. My interest in this field concerns fixed capital, specifically, changes in weekly hours worked by capital over long periods of time, and the signifi cance of those changes in the measurement oflong-run productivity change. In studies of growth, the measurement of capital input-by capital stocks or the services yielded by those stocks-typically makes no allowance for the changing hours worked by capital. Capital services are assumed to be propor tional to the stocks. Consequently, in analyses of output growth in a growth accounting framework, the effect of longer capital hours is a component of multifactor or total factor productivity growth.
"Work has become more insecure and unequal. Corporate restructuring strategies hold a good share of the blame, as managers seek to cut costs and shift risk through downsizing, outsourcing, and intensifying performance management. Under what conditions do companies take alternative approaches to restructuring, that balance market demands for profits with social demands for high quality jobs? In Exit, Voice, and Solidarity, Doellgast argues that labor unions can play a central role in encouraging high road practices. But they face steep challenges where they lack strong and inclusive social institutions, based on high minimum standards and worker rights to participate in management decisions. ...
Income inequality has skyrocketed in Canada over the past few decades. The rich have become richer, while the average household income has deteriorated and job quality has plummeted. Common explanations for these trends point to globalization, technology, or other forces largely beyond our control. But, as Jobs with Inequality shows, there is nothing inevitable about inequality. Rather, runaway inequality is the result of politics and policies - what governments have done to aid the rich and boost finance and what they have not done to uphold the interests of workers. Drawing on new tax and income data, John Peters tells the story of how inequality is unfolding in Canada today by examining post-democracy, financialization, and labour market deregulation. Timely and novel, Jobs with Inequality explains how and why business and government have rewritten the rules of the economy to the advantage of the few, and considers why progressive efforts to reverse these trends have so regularly run aground.
Tolerance: Human Fragility and the Quest for Justice: Sheds new light on the liberal democratic values of toleration, taking into account the fragility of human moral ventures in general - within and beyond the Western liberal tradition; Broadly considers the limits of tolerance as they have stemmed from sincere efforts to define justice in a secular or a postsecular manner, together with its related rights, responsibilities, and virtues; Clarifies various forms of response to human needs as connected to the condition of human fragility as well as the persistent quest for justice. Ville Paeivaensalo, PhD (Theology, Helsinki), is a docent in theological and social ethics at the University of Helsinki. Taina Kalliokoski, MTh, is a doctoral student of social ethics at the University of Helsinki. David Huisjen, MTh, is a secondary school teacher and a doctoral student at the Department of Systematic Theology at the University of Helsinki.
As we enter the new century, a common goal has emerged: the removal or liberalization of restrictions on unsocial hours and the variation of working hours. This book draws together an international team to examine the process.
New technologies and the growing flow of information create new conditions for individuals who use these technologies in the work place. The existence and application of modern IT systems can result in new forms of work, tasks that have actually emerged as a result of modern computer and other systems. This third Work Life 2000 Yearbook is pan-European in nature, and provides the researcher with valuable source material relating to the EU's response to the changing working environment.
ÔThis is a fascinating, rich and comprehensive analytical account of the causes and consequences of austerity measures affecting the public sector in terms of pay and employment. The editors have assembled a broad array of contributions that really reflect the diversity within Europe, both in terms of how deep the financial crisis hit, and the drivers of public sector reforms. An absorbing and thought-provoking read.Õ Ð Jacqueline OÕReilly, University of Brighton, UK After a first series of policy responses to the 2008Ð09 crisis aimed at sustaining domestic demand through expansionary anti-crisis packages, most European governments Ð starting with Greece, Ireland, Bulgaria and Romania,...