Recent research has identified a substantial increase in Indigenous mainstream employment since the mid-1990s, but there has been relatively little regional analysis of such employment. The aim of this article is to build on this previous research using the 2006 and 2011 censuses to provide a more disaggregated descriptive analysis of changes in the character of labour market outcomes for Indigenous Australians aged 15–64 years. One of the new findings in the article is that the employment of Indigenous youth (i.e. those aged 15–24 years) in remote areas is different from that of Indigenous youth in non-remote areas, but older Indigenous residents of such areas are not very different in employment terms. Policy-makers thus need to pay particular attention to Indigenous youth employment in remote areas because the failure to address these differentials may lead to a foreclosure of future labour market options. Policy also needs to facilitate Indigenous engagement in the mainstream economy by assisting Indigenous people to be work-ready, especially in ensuring that Indigenous skills are matched with employer demands, and expediting employment by informing businesses on how to provide an Indigenous-friendly workplace.

Research about the demand for Indigenous labour and the relationship of Indigenous workers to their employers is relatively scarce. Even less is known about Indigenous businesses. Supply Nation defines an Indigenous business as those where Indigenous stakeholders hold majority equity, but some researchers have argued that this definition could be relaxed to include businesses in which Indigenous people hold only half the equity in the enterprise. This article uses data from the Industry Capability Network Queensland, which has collected basic business information on a large number of businesses operating in Queensland. The findings reveal that Indigenous businesses have substantially better outcomes for Indigenous employment than non-Indigenous businesses – a result that holds even when the definition of Indigenous business is relaxed. The article also documents how Indigenous employment is concentrated in larger businesses, in particular industry sectors. Non-Indigenous micro-businesses employ relatively few Indigenous workers, and future research can usefully explore why this is the case. To understand the issues involved, it will be necessary to collect multi-level data that link detailed information on employers and employees (including a substantial sample of Indigenous workers).

We show consumer expectations indices from the Conference Board and the University of Michigan predict unemployment upticks in the USA up to 18 months in advance, both at national and at state level. These data predict six of the last six recessions called by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee 6–18 months before the date of recession. The consumer expectations data for 2021 and 2022 are consistent with recession.

We examine the start date of the Great Recession across OECD countries. The Sahm Rule identifies the start of recession in the US to the beginning of 2008 but in most other OECD countries it identifies the start after that identified by two successive falls in quarterly GDP. We establish our own rule for predicting recession using the fear of unemployment series to predict recession. We show a 10-point rise in the series compared to its previous 12 month low predicted the onset of the Great Recession in both the United States and Europe.

Following the covid-induced lockdowns, many commented on the role the German model of Kurzarbeit could play in reducing unemployment. Other countries emulated the model. Looking at the experiences of Germany, the UK, Sweden and the USA, the article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of short-time working (STW) schemes. It asks whether STW has been well designed to have optimal short and longer run impact. It is quite effective as a short-term palliative, but in longer downturns, its weaknesses come to the fore. It is by no means clear that the UK needs a permanent replacement for the furlough.

In an era of free movement UK employers have had ready access to a supply of labour from the European Union to fill low-skilled jobs. This has enabled them to adopt business models, operating within broader supply chains, that take advantage of this source of labour and the flexibility that many migrant workers – especially those who are new arrivals to the UK – are prepared to offer them. Drawing mainly on evidence from employers on the role of migrant workers in selected sectors with a substantial proportion of low-skilled jobs, this article explores the challenges and opportunities they face in transitioning to a new post-Brexit immigration regime.

The effects on agents’ welfare of two different policies dealing with undocumented immigrants, amnesties and deportations, are assessed. I develop a two-period overlapping generations model which accounts for the ex-ante production by undocumented workers and their impact on the government budget. Additional channels, such as the discrimination on the labor market and a different productivity of regularized workers are discussed. The impact of a migration policy depends on the wage effects of the legalized/deported workers and their net fiscal contribution. The calibration of the model for the United States in 2014 allows to disentangle the channels at work. Overall, the impact of the two policies on natives’ welfare is limited (between −0.1% and +0.15%). Retired agents benefit from an amnesty and are harmed by a deportation. The effect on workers is ambiguous and depends on the wage and fiscal effects in addition to the change in the returns on savings.

This paper reviews three UK-based welfare-to-work programmes featuring time-limited financial incentives to leave out-of-work benefits for employment. The policies considered are (i) the Employment Retention and Advancement demonstration, aimed at lone parents and the long-term unemployed; (ii) In-Work Credit, aimed at lone parents on welfare; (iii) Pathways to Work, aimed at recipients of incapacity benefits. I illustrate the difficulties in extrapolating from specific findings to general policy-relevant conclusions. Finally, I depict the challenge facing evaluators in future and point to the directions in which evaluation will need to develop if it is to contribute more fully to policy-relevant evaluation.

This paper provides a simple matching model in which unemployed workers and employers can be matched together through social networks or through more “formal” methods of search. We show that, in some case, networks substitute for labor market and that this crowding-out effect may be socially costly. For that reason, a policy increasing the social capital of the disadvantaged workers can increase the unemployment rate and decrease workers' output.

This paper examines compulsion in active labour market programmes (ALMP). When an unemployed worker has to participate in a programme in order to remain eligible for benefits there are two seperate effects. First, there is the treatment effect, i.e. the programme makes the worker more attractive for a potential employer or makes search more efficient, thus helping the unemployed worker to find a job more quickly. Second, there is the compulsion effect, i.e. because the worker has to attend the programme his value of being unemployed drops and he is stimulated to find a job more quickly. So, both effects induce the worker to find a job more quickly. The difference between the treatment effect and the compulsion effect concerns the quality of the post-unemployment job. The treatment effect improves the quality; the compulsion effect lowers the quality of post-unemployment jobs.

This article summarises the recent evaluation of Pathways to Work – a package of reforms aimed at encouraging employment among people claiming incapacity benefits (Belway et al., 2007). The results show an increase of over 7 percentage points in the probability of working about a year and a half after the start of claim. The probability of not claiming incapacity benefits was also increased initially but this effect later reduced to just 1½ percentage points. The findings suggest Pathways to Work may contribute to the Government's aim of increasing the employment rate. They provide less encouragement with regard to the aim of reducing by 1 million the number claiming incapacity benefits.

Under the heading of flexicurity, Danish labour market activation policies are receiving international attention because of their perceived ability both to curb unemployment and to boost employment. Indeed, the objectives, target groups and design of activation policy have undergone a remarkable transformation over the past fifteen years. From the initial curbing of unemployment among the insured unemployed through standard activation offers, the aim today is also to increase labour supply among non-economic active groups using individually tailored programmes. Danish activation policies thus embrace not only active labour market policies but also social and integration policies. Despite widespread popularity and belief in the positive effects of activation, little is actually known about its overall impact on the Danish economy.

Cet article vise à analyser les effets des conditions d'éligibilité à l'assurance chômage sur le taux de chômage d'équilibre et le bien-être dans un modèle de recherche d'emploi avec accumulation de capital et effort de recherche endogène. Trois instruments de politique économique sont considérés: le montant des indemnisations, la durée de versement des prestations et la période de cotisation au régime d'assurance chômage. Nous mon-trons qu'un allongement de la durée de versement accompagné d'une baisse des allocations améliore le bien-être en utilisant de manière plus efficace la capacité d'auto-assurance des chômeurs éligibles.

The European Union aims at a stronger participation by its population in work to foster growth and welfare. There are concerns about the attachment of immigrants to the labour force, and discussions about the necessary policy responses. Integrated labour and migration policies are needed. The employment chances of the low-skilled are limited. Whereas Europe could benefit from a substantive immigration policy that imposes selection criteria that are more in line with economic needs, the substantial immigration into the European Union follows largely non-economic motives. This paper discusses the economic rationale of a selective immigration policy and provides empirical evidence about the adverse effects of current selection mechanisms.

In recent years Western governments have introduced a number of emergency measures in their fight against short run unemployment. In this paper a normative analysis concerning the joint implementation of two such measures is offered, viewing unemployment as involuntary, and taking account of the dissatisfaction cost (lack of the social status that having a job provides) borne by unemployed workers. Attention is paid to the existing trade-off between a policy of wage subsidies to the private sector aimed at stimulating employment and a policy of transfer payments to the unemployed intended to increase their purchasing power. In a simple general equilibrium model with wage rigidity, wage subsidy formulas are derived for two settings of incomes control.