Employment systems consist of complex arrays of formal and informal rules that structure the relationships between employees and employers. There are many different types of employment systems. Some are specified in considerable detail in collectively bargained quasilegal employment contracts, while others are left to discretion. This book describes the latter type of employment system-one in which there is an active market for knowl edge and skills. This is the salaried employment system of ForestCo-a large multiplant manufacturing company in the forest products industry. Here, supervisors and managers actively adjust the jobs and persons under their authority to meet the market, social, and institutional forces that influence the activities and performance of their departments. The study of employment systems is a relatively recent phenomenon, and few prior studies or theories were found to guide this investigation. Neither the scope nor the components of employment system studies are yet established. The field is confused and contested. Nevertheless, there is related literature which can be used to focus attention on different features of employment systems. One emerging body of work that holds the most promise for the study of employment systems is internal labor market (lLM) theory.

Excerpt from Length of Service and the Operation of Internal Labor Markets Our work on the operation of enterprise internal labor markets has produced very strong evidence that at least the within-grade or within-job fraction of the observed return to years of company service (40 to 80 percent of the total return to company service in the settings for which we have seen data) cannot be explained on the basis of an underlying relationship between service and productivity. Furthermore, we have collected survey data which imply that years of service play a significant role in promotion decisions for a very large fraction of our country's workforce; for those employees, the cross - grade or cross - job earnings differential associated with service must also be considered at least in part a return to service per se. It would thus appear that junior workers are typically paid less, and senior workers more, than the value of their marginal product. One might expect this sort of deferred compensation scheme to be accompanied by constraints on firms' ability to cheat workers out of the return promised for the second half of their work lives; we have gathered evidence that senior employees at most u.s. Firms do in fact enjoy substantial protection against being involuntarily terminated. Our results raise the intriguing question of why_senior workers receive higher earnings than their junior peers, even though they are no more productive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This book discusses the institutional aspects of the American labor market. The introduction assesses the major changes since 1971.

This paper presents a summary of the evidence which has recently been collected concerning the role of length of service in the operation of internal labor markets. It argues that these data are inconsistent with the human capital model of the experience-earnings and experience-layoff relationships. The paper concludes by asserting that if we are ever to fully understand the role of service, newdata are needed

This book provides a description of a number of institutional features of the U.S. labor market and prompts an analytical debate about the origins of the institutions it describes and their significance for the operation of the U.S. economic system.

Annotation The Handbook brings together a systematic review of the research topics, empirical findings, and methods that comprise modern labor economics. It serves as an introduction to what has been done in this field, while at the same time indicating possible future trends which will be important in both spheres of public and private decision-making. Part 1 is concerned with the classic topics of labor supply and demand, the size and nature of the elasticities between the two, and their impact on the wage structure. This analysis touches on two fundamental questions: what are the sources of income inequality, and what are the disincentive effects of attempts to produce a more equal income distribution? The papers in Part II proceed from the common observation that the dissimilarity in worker skills and employer demands often tempers the outcomes that would be expected in frictionless labor markets. And the last section of the Handbook deals explicitly with the role of institutional structures (e.g. trade unions) that now form an important part of modern labor economics.

This book examines the value Korean employers and workers place on stable employment with a focus on the workers' want for more desirable transition outcomes as modified by various individual and structural factors, particularly labor market structure. Results of the analysis show that internal labor market structure has increased employment stability and the desirability of transition outcomes in Korea over time. Korea's industrialization has enabled internal labor market structure to mature to a level that has increased employment stability and the desirability of transition outcomes. This implies that Korea has experienced industrialization in such a short period that internal labor market structure has not matured enough to influence the ways in which other factors affect employment transition patterns. Results of the effects of labor market structure and other factors on employment transition patterns imply that Korea's industrialization has had mixed effects on workers' economic and social well-being. On the one hand, it has improved the overall level of workers' well being, yet on the other hand, it has increased heterogeneity in well being among different types of workers.