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This paper examines the impact of an academic degree and field of study on short and long-term unemployment across Europe (EU15). Labour Force Survey (LFS) data on over half a million individuals are utilised for that purpose. The harmonized LFS classification of level of education and field of study overcomes past problems of comparability across Europe. The study analyses (i) the effect of an academic degree at a European level, (ii) the specific effect of 14 academic subjects and (iii) country specific effects. The results indicate that an academic degree is more effective on reducing the likelihood of short-term than long-term unemployment. This general pattern even though it is observed for most of the academic subjects its levels show significant variation across disciplines and countries.

This article analyses the effectiveness of occupational health and safety (OHS) management in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, we (1) provide an overview of the implementation of occupational risk preventive activities in a sample of SMEs; (2) characterize alternative approaches of OHS management systems; (3) assess the effectiveness of the identified OHS systems in occupational safety outcomes; and (4) analyse the factors affecting the adoption of such OHS systems. The study is based on primary data obtained by means of a survey on OHS management in 193 Spanish manufacturing SMEs. The analysis disentangles differences between the OHS activity of small-sized enterprises (SSEs) — those under 50 employees — and medium-sized enterprises (MSEs) — 50—250 employees. We find evidence that the effort and type of OHS management system does significantly affect the injury rate. More specifically, firms that complement traditional technical preventive activities with people and organization-oriented procedures are the most effective in reducing occupational accidents. Such advanced OHS systems are significantly less developed in SSEs. Our results also reveal that the choice of OHS system is determined by the quality of industrial relations, rate of unionization, intensity of price-based competition, access to public aid and training activities provided by the OHS public agencies, technology intensity, and the manual nature of workers’ tasks.

In this paper, we analyse the effect of promoting workers’ employability on labour productivity. To this end, we adapt a simple efficiency-wage model that includes the employer’s decision on the provision of opportunities for enhancing workers’ employment prospects in a context of job insecurity. We show that (i) by facilitating workers’ employability, the firm increases its labour productivity; and (ii) the higher the job uncertainty the higher the productivity gains due to the increase in employability. One of the advantages of our model is that it is simply enough to allow us to formulate two testable hypotheses, namely (i) the increase of jobs’ potential to enhance workers’ employability results in higher level of workers’ effort, and (ii) the provision of employability is more profitable for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) than for large firms. More precisely, SMEs should obtain higher effort levels from employees by fostering workers’ employability than large firms. We provide some evidence supporting these hypotheses from a highly representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms. Copyright Springer 2007employability, worker effort, SMEs, Spain, J24, J31, M21,

Document de Treball núm. 07/3La sèrie Documents de treball d'economia de l'empresa presenta els avanços i resultats d'investigacions en curs que han estat presentades i discutides en aquest departament; això no obstant, les opinions són responsabilitat dels autors. El document no pot ser reproduït total ni parcialment sense el consentiment de l'autor/a o autors/res. Dirigir els comentaris i suggerències directament a l'autor/a o autors/res, a la direcció que apareix a la pàgina següent.A Working Paper in the Documents de treball d'economia de l'empresa series is intended as a mean whereby a faculty researcher's thoughts and findings may be communicated to interested readers for their comments. Nevertheless, the ideas put forwards are responsibility of the author. Accordingly a Working Paper should not be quoted nor the data referred to without the written consent of the author. Please, direct your comments and suggestions to the author, which address shows up in the next page. AbstractThis paper analyses the impact of a series of managerial and organisational factors on occupational injuries. These consist of occupational safety measures, as regards both the intensity and the orientation of risk prevention in companies, and the adoption of certain work organisation practices, quality management and the use of flexible production technologies. We estimate a negative binomial regression based on a sample of 213Spanish industrial establishments, defining a constant random parameter to take account of non-observable heterogeneity. Our results show that occupational safety measures, the intensive use of quality management tools and the empowerment of workers all help to reduce the number of injuries. We have also confirmed the presence of synergies between the organisational factors analysed and the development of an occupational safety strategy featuring participation and the extension of prevention to all levels of the organisation.

PurposeThe concept of Safety Capital was developed by analyzing the creation and composition of the Intellectual Capital embedded in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) systems. The paper aims to address this relationship.Design/methodology/approachBy drawing a theoretical link for the relationship between OHS activities and intellectual capital, guidelines for the management of organizational knowledge on OHS systems are outlined.FindingsThe paper shows that occupational health and safety should be considered among the sources of intellectual capital of the firm.Originality/valueThe theoretical framework is a potential guide for substantial improvement of advanced OSH management systems, a key element to visualize incentives to invest in safety and a powerful instrument for research in intellectual capital quantification.

PurposeThis paper aims to identify the work‐based competences associated with better career prospects in the Spanish labour market.Design/methodology/approachThe relationship between employee‐based competencies and employment prospects is investigated through the lens of the competence‐based approach. The partial least squares (PLS) methodology is applied on a sample of over 5,000 Spanish employees.FindingsThe analysis establishes that skill, motivation, participation in decision‐making and the performance of non‐routine and complex tasks are associated with more favourable career prospects. Finally, it has also been found that human capital dimensions valued by firms vary with occupation, as clear differences have been observed between white‐ and blue‐collar occupations. In particular, social skills and motivation appear to be more relevant for blue‐collar workers than for white‐collar workers.Originality/valueFor the first time, this paper analyses employees' career prospects using work‐based competences as predictors. Additionally, the analysis is based within a very uncertain labour market, Spain, where high unemployment and an extensive use of temporary contracts seriously hinder workers' career prospects.

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