Panama has achieved socio-economic improvements in recent decades thanks to strong economic growth and consequent poverty reduction. Its growth model is characterised by a dual economy in which a small number of activities, including those related to the Canal and Special Economic Zones, have exhibited high productivity growth but limited job…

Increasing numbers of recent college graduates are ending up in relatively low-skilled jobs that, historically, have gone to those with lower levels of educational attainment. This study examines this phenomenon in some detail, concluding: (1) About 48 percent of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)…

This document provides an overview of research findings presented and audience response at the "state-the-science" conference conducted by Cornell University October 22-23, 2013 in Washington, D.C. on the topic of "Innovative Research on Employment Practices: Improving Employment for People with Disabilities." An overview of…

Technological change was unskilled-labor-biased during the early Industrial Revolution, but is skill-biased today. This is not embedded in extant unified growth models. We develop a model which can endogenously account for these facts, where factor bias reflects profit-maximizing decisions by innovators. Endowments dictate that the early…

Presents findings of a study of Caribbean undocumented immigrants in the Flatbush-Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. Focuses on employment among this group, and suggests that these illegal immigrants do, in fact, compete in the labor market with American-born, unskilled workers. (GC)

This paper finds that the ready availability of illegal-immigrant workers from Mexico in major industries in the Southwest region of the United States is having far-reaching and often unanticipated consequences for patterns of investment, employment, and business competition. It reviews the displacement of U.S. workers by illegal immigrants in…

Gordon Berlin discusses the nation's long struggle to reduce poverty in families with children, and proposes a counterintuitive solution--rewarding the work of individuals. He notes that policymakers' difficulty in reducing family poverty since 1973 is attributable to two intertwined problems--falling wages among low-skilled workers and the…

While employment growth has accelerated, allowing unemployment to fall significantly since 2005, many low-skilled workers are still unemployed and the duration of unemployment spells is still long. The introduction of an in-work benefit for workers in low-income households, subject to a minimum of hours worked, could lower barriers to higher…

Studies the decline of immigrants with professional and technical occupations to the United States, using data from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Data show a shift in where immigrants are coming from, that is, less technologically inclined countries; and greater immigration of categories with low proportions of professional and…

THE STUDY DEMONSTRATED THAT THE RATIO OF UNSKILLED TO SKILLED EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT VARIES FROM THE PEAK TO THE TROUGH OF THE BUSINESS CYCLE. DATA PRIMARILY FROM "EMPLOYMENT AND EARNINGS AND MONTHLY REPORT ON THE LABOR FORCE," MARCH 1967 WERE USED IN RELATING THE ANNUAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES FOR CRAFTSMEN AND LABORERS TO BUSINESS CYCLE PEAKS…

When chronicling how less-skilled workers have fared in the U.S. since the late 1970's, existing literature often cites their falling wages and declining participation in the labor force. Most research describing these trends, however, focuses primarily on men, failing to account for the fact that less-skilled women's real wages have not fallen,…

Many immigrant women from Europe settled in Lowell, Massachusetts and worked in textile mills. They lived in enclaves with little knowledge of others beyond their ethnic boundaries. Ethnic groups were in closer proximity in the work place, but the women were uneasy mingling with those outside of their culture. (VM)

This short profile of the trends in the employment of women in skilled trades and other manual occupations during the 5-year period between 1983 and 1988 shows that the number of women in these occupations rose only modestly. Three tables chart the total numbers of persons employed in the trades by sex for the years 1983 and 1988; persons employed…

Over the past few decades, the economic prospects for workers possessing relatively few skills have worsened as the demand for skills in the labor market has increased. Even in jobs that might be categorized as low-skilled, workers require a diverse set of skills to succeed. Many of these skills can only be obtained through schooling or job…

A survey of 379 Elkhart County, Indiana, employers was conducted to determine the local labor force situation. Replies received from 141 employers were analyzed, with the following findings reported: (1) more than 520 job openings existed for unskilled, entry-level jobs, but employers were having trouble filling them because candidates were poorly…