Journal Article

Following recent research on technology-driven economic growth, we have identified and provided empirical evidence on how highly automated environments and breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) bring about innovative kinds of skills and employment disruptions. Using and replicating data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, CEA calculations, Frey and Osborne (2013), Gartner, National Post, OECD, Pew Research Center, Statista, and YouGov, we performed analyses and made estimates regarding percentage of jobs with high potential for automation or significant change in task, probability of automation by an occupation’s median hourly wage, the impact of AI automation on jobs, and percentage of U.S. workers worried they might lose their job to advancing technology, and who say they would (strongly) oppose/(strongly) favor certain policies in the event that robots and computers are capable of doing many human jobs.

This paper draws on previous relevant findings (e.g., Graham, Hjorth, and Lehdonvirta, 2017; Ravenelle, 2017; Sargeant, 2017). Using data from OECD, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, FRED, Pew Research Center, and BloombergView, we performed analyses and made estimates regarding change in self-employment as share of total employment, self-employment rate by level of education, the proportion of gig platform workers who use online job/task platforms, workers by category in the freelance economy, and breakdown of services provided by gig workers, and clarify that numerous sharing economy services may provide workers a manner to oppose declining wages and workplace volatility.

Soft skills complement hard skills and have a significant impact on the ability of teachers to do their job and on their employability. Soft skill components acquired by future holistic human capital are communicative skills, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, teamwork skill, life-long learning and management of information, entrepreneurship skill, ethics, moral and professional skill, and leadership skill. This research aims to investigate gaps related to soft skills obtained from their teaching professional training compared to the soft skills needed in their workplace among the novice teachers. A total sample of 250 novice teachers was selected from all secondary schools in Malaysia by employing purposive sampling. This study employs the quantitative method to collect data from novice teachers during their induction year. The findings showed that teamwork skill and communication skill were the two most important soft skill components, not only very much needed in their workplace but also gained from their teaching training program. However, entrepreneurship skill was the least capacity soft skill component needed in their workplace as well as gained from their teaching training program. According to the results of t-test analysis, there is a significant difference between the gained and needed level of soft skill components. In addition, the mean score for all the soft skill components needed in their workplace are higher than what they gained from their teaching training program.

Lifelong learning is now a recurring topic in national human resource, employment, entrepreneurship and educational reform discourse. In Singapore, the government urges citizens to be lifelong learners to enhance their employability and reminds them that lifelong learning is a survival strategy for the country. This paper presents and analyses Singapore’s rhetoric and initiatives on lifelong learning using an adaptation of Power and Maclean’s framework of lifelong learning, consisting of the following aspects: a basic human right for individual development and empowerment; a means to better employment prospects and higher income; a strategy for poverty alleviation or closing income gaps; an enabler for social benefits such as higher productivity and social capital; and a ‘master key’ for the achievement of national vision. The paper argues that while there are a considerable number of lifelong learning activities in the country, there is also a degree of eclecticism in its rhetoric and practice.

Migration plays an important role in determining skills supply, and certain ethnic groups tend to be over-represented in low-paid work. This article considers the implications of the complex interplay of migration, ethnicity and workplace progression for skills policy by comparing and contrasting the opportunities faced by low-paid workers of diverse ethnicities in progressing to better paid work. This is done by drawing on a qualitative study of nine case study organisations in Scotland and England, including interviews with sixty-five workers and forty-three managers. We argue that while all low-paid workers face formidable barriers to progression, recent migrants and settled ethnic minorities face additional challenges that should be considered in skills and wider social policies related to low-paid work.

We explore the relationship between training and innovation using key insights from the resource‐based approach, organizational learning and labour studies. By using data from 304 large enterprises in Italy, the study highlights a twofold role of training in favouring technological and organizational changes. First, training plays a role in allowing the acquisition and the assimilation of new knowledge. Consequently, firms in which the provision of training is part of a bundle of high‐performance management practices are more likely to undertake technological and organizational changes and to develop new competencies internally. Second, training supports firms in the assimilation of technological and organizational changes. Consequently, firms that undertake these changes exhibit a superior participation rate for employees and greater time intensity of their training programmes. Firms' inclination to develop new competencies internally does not affect, however, the intensity of training, thereby suggesting that organizational learning processes do not start by a broad involvement of employees in formalized training programmes.

Robots did not write this sentence, or any other part of Nature. But that could change. Dramatic shifts in labour are reshaping society, the environment and the political landscape. Consider this disorienting estimate from the World Economic Forum: 65% of children entering primary schools now will grow up to work in jobs that do not yet exist. This week, Nature asks: what light is research shedding on the future of work, and how will the changes affect scientists' working world?

In this paper, we develop a model characterized by skill-biased technological change and increasing costs of education to investigate income inequality. Irregular workers cannot escape poverty by commencing investment in education because wage inequality between regular and irregular workers widens and the price of education increases with the average level of education. Moreover, if the productivity of elementary education is low relative to that of higher education, middle-income individuals are eventually unable to pursue higher education because the threshold for education expenditure rises with the price of education. Thus, income inequality may widen, even among regular workers.

Several transition economies have witnessed a decreased state support for work-life balance, which called for a more active role and increased support offered by employers itself Consequently, companies started implementing a wide array of family-friendly practices, however there was very little understanding about the main organisational effects of introducing family-friendly practices in the context of a transition economy. We propose and test a model of the relationship between family-friendly practices at the organisational level and their effects on the organisation. We offer a detailed investigation of the impact of eight groups of family-friendly practices on the perceived improvement in organisational outcomes. We analysed data over the span of five consecutive years, following companies in Slovenia that had systematically implemented family-friendly corporate practices. We analysed the perceived changes in 20 identified organisational outcomes. Using a linear regression model, we tested which practices would be most able to explain the perceived improvement. We found that the introduction of family-friendly practices had a positive perceived improvement in most (70 percent) of the identified areas, though none of them exhibited a significantly greater impact. Practices affecting workplace arrangements, information and communication and services for families were the groups of practices that had the greatest effect on the perceived positive effects for companies.