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The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the visibility of “low skilled” migrant workers in the agricultural and care work sectors, who have been rebranded as “essential” by receiving states in the Glo...

This study explores the recent trends, state-wise changing patterns and determinants of low-skilled emigration from India to Gulf Cooperation Council using both familiar and unexplored sources of d...

The growing number and proportion of migrant workers globally is an evolving issue in consular work. The globalisation of labour and markets, as well as rapid technological and societal development...

This article discusses workers at two organizations: one employing disabled individuals and another employing low-skilled Mexican-American women. Workers at both organizations show positive effects...

The government of Malaysia is, alas, not doing its level best to include migrant workers, let alone low-skilled women migrant workers (WMW) in its 2020-2021 COVID-19 policy response.First and forem...

This paper explores the theme of patronage by examining how the social mobility prospects of paid domestic workers differ from other vulnerable low-skilled black and colored women in post-apartheid South Africa. The literature provides contradictory predictions about the effects of a relationship with an affluent employer on a vulnerable employed woman and her household. Using data from the 2002–8 General Household Survey, this study uses propensity score matching (PSM) to compare paid domestic workers versus employed women with similar labor market characteristics. It finds that the household members of paid domestic workers tend to have a lower likelihood of unemployment, lower unemployment duration, higher likelihood of owning assets, and lower prevalence of hunger. It is, however, important to see evidence of such benefits in the context of a complicated employment relationship and to highlight that such benefits can reflect both altruistic and self-serving employer motivations.

The literature highlights that social enterprises (SEs) attract workers who are motivated to help others and to meet the social aims in which they believe. However, this assumption is challenged in...

In the contemporary world, many people find themselves confused and challenged by unpredictability of life paths, labour market instability and necessary revisions to vocational careers. They may be helped by professional support institutions. For some people, seeking professional help when facing a predicament is evidence of resourcefulness. Others, however, perceive a request for help as expressive of vulnerability and a lack of self-reliance in coping with life problems. In this article, we examine 15 interviews with low-skilled and low-educated people in Poland about their experiences with educational and vocational counselling as well as the relevance they attribute to past meetings with counsellors. Concluding, we formulate recommendations for Polish educational and vocational counselling.

The research investigation into the career trajectories of low-skilled, mid-career individuals in Europe, on which this symposium focused, has emphasised the importance of career support. Participants sometimes had not even completed their initial school qualifications. Often, though not always, they had significant skill deficits. The majority of participants typically had not had any consistent access to high-quality support services at critical turning points in their career trajectories. In some cases, the inappropriate and/or poor quality of the career support had become part of the problem. Findings indicate that career support services for these individuals must be based on context-sensitive frameworks for practice, which integrate knowledge and understanding of the broad social and economic factors that impact their career trajectories.

The main purpose of this study was to explore how low-skilled worker’s learning activity influences skill improvement. Using a unique 2007 Human Capital Corporate Panel data-set from the South Korean manufacturing industry, we operationalize skill improvement over time among low-skilled workers. A worker is classified as ‘low skilled’ if he or she has a low education level and poor technical skills. Regression models show that low-skilled workers’ informal learning positively influences their skill improvement. In contrast, we note that supervisors negatively influence skill improvement of low-skilled workers when measuring the change in technical skill proficiency. Quality circle programmes also have a positive influence on skill improvement. In conclusion, skills can be improved through planned interventions that increase collaboration on the job. The results from this study help to highlight the importance of designing learning interventions for low-skilled workers that take account of their underlying...

This article analyses online job advertisements to identify skills that are demanded in selected low- and medium-skilled occupations. We explore data from the publicly administered cross-European EURES job search portal and quantify the different cognitive and non-cognitive skills requested by employers in small European economies. While we find that the service sector demands non-cognitive skills more than other types of occupation, the skill-mix demanded is very diverse across countries, implying that other domestic factors shape how demand is formulated. Our work shows that online portals can become a useful source for studying employers’ demand at the micro-level to inform employment, education and training policies.

This article considers the struggles faced by Asian states in their attempts to recruit mostly low-skilled temporary labour migrants. The article observes three trends: (1) there is a marked reluct...

A major feature of the contemporary Australian labour market is the declining participation of prime-age men, in particular those with low education levels. Using Census data for 1996 and 2006, this paper explores how occupational sex segregation - a concept traditionally used to explain female employment outcomes - has shaped low-skilled men's employment opportunities in Australia. The empirical evidence shows that employment for workers with limited levels of educational attainment has expanded most rapidly in occupations that are female-dominated. Men are not increasing their share of employment in these occupations. This evidence supports the argument that sex segregation in employment opportunities has contributed to men's withdrawal from the labour force. The paper concludes by discussing the relative usefulness of occupational sex segregation as a theoretical framework for understanding low-skilled men's labour market situation.

Previous studies on low-skilled single mothers focus generally either on the binary welfare use or work decision. However, work among welfare participants has increased steadily since the mid-1990s. This study estimates the role of the 1993 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) expansion on the decline of welfare caseloads using a bivariate probit model. Using monthly Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) information, I find that the 1993 EITC expansion has at least the same effect on reducing welfare use as the welfare reform initiatives. Moreover, the elasticity estimates indicate that single mothers, especially those who were not employed and dependent solely on welfare before the expansion, were the most responsive to the policy initiatives. Finally, the increase in work among welfare participants is due to the relative ineffectiveness of the policies in reducing the net population of those who are on welfare and work simultaneously.

This article examines the formation, determination, and quality of employment concentration for low-skilled Latino immigrants. Comparative evidence is drawn from the three metropolitan areas of Chi...

My paper for this special issue (Ruhs, 2010), which builds on analysis in a previous paper with Phil Martin (Ruhs and Martin, 2008), suggests the hypothesis of a trade‐off (i.e. an inverse relationship) between the number and some of the socio‐economic rights of low‐skilled migrant workers admitted to high‐income countries. Ruhs (2010) discusses the economic factors and mechanisms that may give rise to such a trade‐off and presents several brief case studies that, I argue, provide some illustrative empirical support for the existence of a trade‐off. As I make clear in the conclusion, there is ‘clearly a need for more systematic empirical research that includes a larger number of countries and that investigates alternative explanations of the relationship between the number and rights of low‐skilled migrant workers admitted to high‐income countries’ (Ruhs, 2010, p. 276) The paper by Cummins and Rodriguez (C&R, 2010) aims to provide this systematic empirical analysis. C&R conclude that their statis...

The main objective of the paper was to address the relevance of adult vocational skills‐upgrading strategies for low‐skilled workers. The research was based on an identification of core elements such as time, cost and access which define and impact on formulation and implementation of adult vocational skills‐upgrading strategies. The literature review has identified potential challenges for low‐skilled workers brought by skill‐biased technological changes and labour market conditions, which define the correlation between low‐skilled workers, employers and training opportunities. By illustrating adult vocational skills‐upgrading strategies in Denmark and South Korea the paper concludes that elements such as time, cost and access have direct implications for low‐skilled workers' skills acquisition and their integration into the labour market.

The aim of the paper is to highlight the gaps between policy and practice in the current discourse on international migration and its links with development. It contends that a major cause of the limited development impact of migration is the ‘closed door policy’ of major destination countries on the admission of low-skilled migrant workers from developing countries. The paper addresses the weak foundations and major consequences of this policy: the denial of labour demand, channelling a large part of flows to irregular migration, consequent exploitation and violation of rights of migrant workers, and accelerated brain drain from developing countries. While there is increasing emphasis on temporary migration policies and programmes for low skilled labour, achievements on the ground have been quite limited. The movement towards a global migration regime which can address current pressing issues has also not progressed beyond broad consultative forums. There is an imperative need for fresh approach...

This article is a combined result of a three years research project on low‐skilled learners’ experiences as participants of various kinds of adult training and education in Denmark, and the findings of a three years research consortium on workplace learning, summing up and generalizing our various findings as to how low‐skilled adults function in relation to participation in training and education activities, how they feel about it, what is important to them, and consequently what works in practice in relation to this very important but often neglected group of adult learners.

This paper argues the case for re‐visiting the concepts of high and low skills as used in academic and political debates in the older industrial countries. There the concept of low skills has, for a number of reasons, acquired negative connotations in that low skilled jobs are seen to “drag down” the economy and therefore something which policy should avoid creating. However, by examining the experience of some of the newly industrialised societies, we witness a situation in which policy makers have deliberately used the creation of low skilled jobs for the purposes of taking people out of poverty and triggering the move into higher skilled, higher value‐added jobs. In the light of this experience it is argued that there is a role for the South African government to take a more pro‐active stance in developing low skilled employment as a prelude to moving the economy up the value‐chain.

In this study, we examined the influence of internal and external attention instructions on the performance of a pitch shot by golfers who were either highly skilled (mean handicap = 4) or low skilled (mean handicap = 26). Ten golfers in each skill group used a 9-iron to pitch a ball as close as possible to an orange pylon, which was located at distances of 10, 15, 20 or 25 m from the golfer. Focus of attention was manipulated within participants (counterbalanced across golfers). Under internal focus of attention instructions, the participants were told to concentrate on the form of the golf swing and to adjust the force of their swing depending on the distance of the shot. For the external focus of attention conditions, the participants were told to concentrate on hitting the ball as close to the target pylon as possible. The most intriguing finding was an interaction of skill with focus of attention instructions for variability in performance. Similar to the findings of Wulf and colleagues, the highly skilled golfers performed better with external attention instructions than with internal focus instructions. In contrast, the low-skill golfers performed better with the internal than with the external focus of attention instructions. These findings are discussed relative to theoretical issues in motor learning and practical issues for golf instruction.

(2002). The Role of Low-skilled Foreign Workers in the Process of Taiwan's Economic Development. Asia Pacific Business Review: Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 41-66.

While many studies of income inequality in the United States focus of the significance of declining marginal tax rates in the 1980s, very little research to date has considered the effect of government regulations which have increased dramatically during the time of marked increases in the Gini coefficient. This paper presents a simple Ordinary Least Squares regression suggesting a relationship between government regulation and income inequality. It is suggested that increases in the regulatory burden in the US labour market increases the cost of low skilled labour relative to high skilled labour, contributing to increases in income inequality.

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in knowledge representation and problem solutions in expert and novice youth baseball players. Ninety-four players in two age divisions, 7-8 years of age and 9-10 years of age, were assigned to three levels of expertise: high; average; and low skilled. Each subject participated in an interview session to elicit knowledge representation and solutions to five different defensive game situations. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed for content, solution to the problem, errors in problem solution, and qualitative trends. The frequency of advanced solutions to each of the five situations were analyzed in separate chi-square tests for age and expertise. Differences among the levels of expertise were found for the accuracy of solutions to three complex situations. Age was significant for only one situation. Patterns of knowledge content accessed during advanced and less advanced responses indicated both experts and novices were in a beginning stage of developing baseball knowledge structures. Errors in problem solutions indicated children had difficulty monitoring critical conditions and making correct inferences. Players' and teammates' ability to execute baseball skills seemed to influence the content and structure of tactical knowledge accessed during problem solution.

This paper provides a critique of neo‐liberal political economy of education. It is argued that neo‐liberal ideology trades off democracy against ‘economic efficiency’. However, the consequence of the application of neo‐liberal principles to education is that overall standards of education are likely to decline, thereby creating the conditions for a low skilled, low morale workforce. It is suggested that this outcome is consistent with the Neo‐liberal creation of a low wage low technology economy. On the basis of the critique, an alternative education system concerned with meeting the aims of an education for a democratic, economically sophisticated, society is sketched.

A mesh of social processes contribute to the predominance of women in a narrow range of low paid, low status and low skilled jobs. The views that women and girls themselves hold on the types of work for which they are best suited are one element of this mesh. Women's Training Roadshows are an example of strategies which aim to widen the options that are considered by schoolgirls as part of their transition from school to work. This paper locates Roadshows in the context of similar initiatives and goes on to consider some of the benefits of this approach.

The stated levels of aspirations (L/A's) of high-skilled and low-skilled boys were examined to determine if they differed under prearranged conditions of failure in a simple motor task. Subjects were selected on the basis of their performances on a modified form of the Iowa Brace test. The motor task consisted of moving small blocks from one board to another. Preceding each of three trials, the subjct stated how many blocks he reasonably thought he could move in the succeeding 30-second trial. After a universal performance level was established, failure was induced by systematically stopping the subject before he attained his L/A. A 2×3 factorial design with repeated measures on the second-factor was employed. Analysis of variance indicated that the main effects of skill level and trials were significant at the .05 level. Analysis of simple effects indicated that the L/A's of the high- and low-skilled groups differed significantly only on the third trial (p = .05) and that failure had a significa...

The vast concentration of production in the imperialist era, particularly in the period of the general crisis of capitalism, and the powerful development of machine technology on this basis have been instrumental in bringing about a considerably greater depreciation of skilled labor. At the same time, the increasingly extensive use of machines transforms workers formerly occupied with simple manual labor into low-skilled attendants of the machine. As the result of these processes, social and economic distinctions between different strata of the proletariat have begun to diminish, while the proportion of low skilled machine operators has grown markedly.

Performances of 26 athletically high-skilled (HS) and 26 athletically low-skilled (LS) subjects on 6 novel motor skills were compared to extend insight as to the cause of LS's poorly developed neuromotor coordination. The skills varied from those needing finger and hand dexterity, only, to those involving gross bodily actions. It was hypothesized that LS would tend to reveal slower learning than HS on all tasks if their motor disturbance was a generalized phenomenon but would differ from HS only on the athletically structured tasks if their motor learning difficulties were primarily a matter of limited play experience. Both groups showed similar learning on 4 of the 6 tasks. HS had significantly greater improvement scores than LS on two athletically oriented skills. It was concluded that the motor learning difficulties of LS are problems mostly specific to the physical education and athletic situations.