Labour Market Myths

I was having a quick look at the work foundation's website the other day expecting a load of nonsense. This is because the work foundation's founder, Will Hutton has been known to talk a bit of shite over the years. He's well intentioned, yes, but he has been known to fall into the Richard Reich view of the future of the labour market, which was in the end, rubbish.

Which made it refresing to read this - Still At Work? An Empirical Test of Competing Theories of the Long Hours Culture by
Marc Cowling - which did start to mention labour market myths.

This is good. I do also know of some great work done by Futureskills Scotland in researching and exposing labour market myths in a refreshingly easy to read format (1 page!). Examples include:

Myth: "People are working longer hours" - Working hours have remained remarkably stable over the past ten years.

Myth:"Part- time employment increasing at the expense of fulltime jobs" (PDF-39kb) - It is a myth that part-time jobs are replacing full-time ones, and that most people who work part-time do so against their wishes or because they cannot find full-time jobs.

Myth: "Scotland is running out of workers?" Is Scotland in a population crisis? Scotland is unlikely to 'run out' of workers and there remains time to address most of the challenges that might emerge.

Myth: "Jobs have become less secure" - There is little evidence that the labour market has become less secure.

Myth: "Most employers are ageist" - in fact - most employers are not ageist (PDF format - 45kb) - Most Scottish employers are willing to hire older workers, according to evidence.

Myth: "High technology industries are the main source of tomorrow's jobs" - just not true

More stuff here

SO! that's Economists 6, Mad 'gurus' 0!!!