Journal Article

This article uncovers the strongly ideological quality in Singapore's theory and practice of pragmatism. It also points to a strongly pragmatic quality in the ideological negotiations that play out within the dynamics of hegemony. In this complex relationship, the combination of ideological and pragmatic manoeuvring over the decades has resulted in the historic political dominance of the People's Action Party (PAP) government in partnership with global capital. But in an evolving, diversifying and globalising society, this manoeuvring has also engendered a number of mismatched expectations. It has also seen a greater sensitivity and attention to the inherent ideological contradictions and socio-economic inequalities that may erode what has been a relatively stable partnership between state and capital. This article argues that Singapore's one-party dominant state is the result of continuous ideological work that deploys the rhetoric of pragmatism to link the notion of Singapore's impressive success and future prospects to its ability to attract global capital. In turn, this relies on maintaining a stable political system dominated by an experienced, meritocratic and technocratic PAP government. While this Singaporean conventional wisdom has supported the political and economic interests of the state and global capital in a period of neo-liberal globalisation, its internal contradictions and external pressures have also begun to challenge its hegemonic pre-eminence.

We combine new information technology (IT) offshoring and IT workforce microdata to investigate how the use of IT offshore captive centers is affecting the skill composition of the U.S. onshore IT workforce. The analysis is based on the theory that occupations involving tasks that are “tradable,” such as tasks that require little personal communication or hands-on interaction with U.S.-based objects, are vulnerable to being moved offshore. Consistent with this theory, we find that firms that have offshore IT captive centers have 8% less of their onshore IT workforce involved in tradable occupations; those without offshore captive centers have increased the proportion of onshore employment in these same occupations by 3%. In addition, we find that hourly IT workers (e.g., IT contractors) are disproportionately employed in tradable jobs, and their onshore employment is 2%–3% lower in firms with offshore captive centers. These findings persist after considering different measures of employment composition, including controls for human capital, firm performance, domestic outsourcing, and whether firms choose to build or buy software. Instrumental variables and corroborating regressions suggest that our estimates are conservative—the magnitude of the effect generally rises after accounting for reverse causality and measurement error.

Hong Kong's ageing population is growing at an unprecedented rate. Over the past two decades, the government has implemented policies and innovative engagement activities for elders in areas including lifelong learning and community participation. This paper aims to discuss conceptual, policy and practical issues relevant to the participation of elders in lifelong learning; examine the role of government, providers and community agencies in developing policy and practice for elder learning in Hong Kong; discuss the 'Elder Academy Network' approach to elder learning set up in 1997, which is marked by the retrocession to China and establishment of the Hong Kong Elderly Commission; investigate new directions in elder learning policy and practice; and finally, identify the needs for future research and policy development of lifelong learning for elders in Hong Kong.

The United States has been experiencing a slowdown in measured labor productivity growth since 2004. A number of commentators and researchers have suggested that this slowdown is at least in part illusory because real output data have failed to capture the new and better products of the past decade. I conduct four disparate analyses, each of which offers empirical challenges to this "mismeasurement hypothesis." First, the productivity slowdown has occurred in dozens of countries, and its size is unrelated to measures of the countries' consumption or production intensities of information and communication technologies (ICTs, the type of goods most often cited as sources of mismeasurement). Second, estimates from the existing research literature of the surplus created by internet-linked digital technologies fall far short of the $3 trillion or more of "missing output" resulting from the productivity growth slowdown. Third, if measurement problems were to account for even a modest share of this missing output, the properly measured output and productivity growth rates of industries that produce and service ICTs would have to have been multiples of their measured growth in the data. Fourth, while measured gross domestic income has been on average higher than measured gross domestic product since 2004—perhaps indicating workers are being paid to make products that are given away for free or at highly discounted prices—this trend actually began before the productivity slowdown and moreover reflects unusually high capital income rather than labor income (i.e., profits are unusually high). In combination, these complementary facets of evidence suggest that the reasonable prima facie case for the mismeasurement hypothesis faces real hurdles when confronted with the data.

Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to estimate the extent of “over‐qualification” (i.e. holding a qualification which is above that required to gain entry to the job being done) and “skills under‐utilisation” (i.e. being in a job which does not make use of the knowledge and skills possessed) in the United Kingdom and to examine whether these conditions are correlated with age. Design/methodology/approach- The paper makes use of the 2006 Skills Survey. Cross tabulations of both conditions with age are produced and binomial probit estimates of both conditions are reported. Findings- It is estimated that 38 per cent are over qualified; 15 per cent are in jobs which do not make use of the knowledge and skills they possess; and age is correlated with the probability of being over qualified but not with the condition of under‐utilising the knowledge and skills possessed. Social implications- Skills policy in the United Kingdom focuses almost exclusively upon increasing the supply of more highly qualified individuals. Given the extent of over‐qualification and skills under‐utilisation demonstrated in the paper, more effort should be made by policy makers to design and implement policies which increase the demand for highly skilled labour. Originality/value- The paper answers three questions: How prevalent are qualification mismatches? How prevalent are skills mismatches? To what extent are the two conditions of being over‐qualified and being in a job which does not offer scope to make use of the knowledge and skills possessed correlated with age?

In this article I comment on three aspects of Byrne, Oliner and Sichel’s analyses. First, I show that the patterns in labour productivity growth during the IT era echo those observed during electrification. This includes a slowdown of roughly analogous timing to that observed in 2004-2012 — a slowdown that in the electrification era was followed by a productivity growth acceleration. Second, I discuss the implications of continued divergence in mean and median incomes for the analysis of productivity growth in the long run. Third, I explore further the issue of whether technological progress in semiconductor manufacturing is yielding concomitant increases in semiconductor performance.

Growing evidence on the predictive validity of vocational interests for job performance calls for greater consideration of interest assessment in organizations. However, a consensus on the fundamental dimensions of interests that are aligned with the contemporary world of work is still lacking. In the current research, we developed an organizing framework of vocational interests and empirically validated an 8-dimension model (SETPOINT: Health Science, Creative Expression, Technology, People, Organization, Influence, Nature, and Things). We propose that interests are structured hierarchically, with preferences for specific work activities at the lowest level (assessed using interest items), basic interests for homogeneous classes of activities at the intermediate level (assessed using basic interest scales), and broad-band interest dimensions describing general tendencies of individuals to be drawn to or motivated by broad types of work environments at the top. To derive broad-band interest dimensions, it is necessary to base it on a comprehensive range of content-specific basic interest constructs. In Study 1, we conducted an extensive review of existing basic interest scales and developed a new assessment of basic interests with 41 homogeneous scales across two samples. In Study 2, we demonstrated the structural validity of the proposed dimensional model using second-order confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling with a large, diverse sample of working adults and supported its predictive validity for occupational membership in new and traditional sectors of work. We discuss implications from the current findings for building interest theory, using interest assessment for organizational research, and evaluating interest structure with appropriate methods.

The study is focused on the key factor in the structure of any organization the human capital. The objective is to present the thesis of the author that it is possible to optimize the process of formation of human capital through consolidated administration of certain management and control concepts. The tasks are connected with accumulation of evidence that the concept of the audit of human resources can be and should be developed.

From an economic perspective, the current trend of European population aging, perceived as a serious problem, because of the rising costs of social security, pension policy of the state, long-term health care, employee training and not least the growth of unemployment benefits. The aim of paper was to identify and compare factors affecting age management and employment of workers age category 50+ in the V4 countries. On the basis of secondary data gained from statistical portals were assessed the current employment situation of workforce category 50+ in the V4 countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic. The obtained data were organized and processed into graphic form. To determine differences and dependent variables of interest were used two-dimensional contingency tables. For the analysis of contingency tables were used chi-square test, and the actual and expected values were compared. Results of testing and validation of hypotheses were discussed and processed into conclusion.