Recent Releases
Retention of Skilled Workers - Published January, 2021
Introduction: The retention of immigrants and international students has been a major challenge in Atlantic Canada. One of the key drivers of a lack of retention is the perception of a lack of suitable employment.
This report seeks to provide potential solutions to help employers better recruit, integrate and retain immigrant workers and international students in Atlantic Canada by addressing the following questions:
- What are the main reasons for immigrant workers to leave an organization?
- What barriers do employers experience in hiring immigrant workers and international students?
- How do employers’ supportive behaviours and accommodating workplace practices affect turnover of immigrant employees?
- What are possible solutions to eliminate barriers for employers to hire more immigrants and
international students?
Full Report: Retention of Skilled Workers
Immigration Policy Effectiveness - Published January, 2021
Introduction: Immigrants choose where they want to go in large part based on perceived employment opportunities and culture in a region. Employers play a crucial role in achieving the objectives of immigration policies, especially those of the regional immigration programs such as the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) and the Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP). How do employers perceive the immigration process? How do employers navigate Canada’s immigration system? This report will discuss employer perceptions of immigration policy effectiveness and how those perceptions affect their subsequent hiring and retention of immigrants.
Full Report: Immigration Policy Effectiveness
Attitudes Towards Immigrants and International Students - Published January, 2021
Introduction: What have Atlantic employers’ perceptions of hiring immigrants and international students over the recent medium term? This report focuses on Atlantic employers’ experiences, perceptions and outlook related to hiring immigrants and international students.
Full Report: Attitudes Towards Immigrants and International Students
Fang, T, Gunderson M., and Richard J. Long. (2021). “Profit Sharing and Workplace Productivity Growth in Canada: Does Teamwork Play a Role?” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations (2021)，76(1), 90-114.
Abstract: Using panel data, the study examined whether adoption of an employee profit-sharing plan was related to subsequent productivity growth in Canadian establishments, and whether this relationship was affected by the use of work teams. We utilized a longitudinal research design to compare within-firm productivity growth during the three-year and five-year periods subsequent to profit-sharing adoption and within-firm productivity growth during the same periods in firms that had not adopted profitsharing. We found significant positive effects of profit-sharing adoption on workplace productivity growth in firms that had work teams in place when profit-sharing was adopted, but not in firms without work teams. Our results highlight the complementarity of profit-sharing and teamwork.
Skills Shortages and Hiring Challenges - Published January, 2021
Introduction: How did Atlantic employers experience skills and labour shortages over the recent medium-term? What kinds of hiring opportunities or challenges do they anticipate over the next few years? This report focuses on Atlantic employers’ experiences and perceptions and outlook related to skills and labour shortages and hiring.
Full Report: Skills Shortages and Hiring Challenges
Business & Employment Growth - Published January, 2021
Introduction: How do Atlantic employers see the regional economy and their businesses growing over the medium- term? This paper is the first in a series of five reports on the results of a survey of 801 employers across Atlantic Canada on hiring, retention, immigration and economic growth. This report focuses on Atlantic employers’ perceptions and outlook related to economic and business growth.
Full Report: Business & Employment Growth
Barry, M., Gomez, R., Kaufman, B. E., Wilkinson, A., & Zhang, T. (2020). “Is it ‘you’ or ‘your workplace’ ? Predictors of job‐ related training in the Anglo‐American world.” International Journal of Training and Development, 24(3), 173-203.
Abstract: This paper examines the determinants of job-related training and workplace voice. Using data from a unique 2016 cross-national survey of Australian, British, Canadian, and American employees, the paper contrasts the neoclassical/human capital approach and the traditional institutional approach. We find the human capital model provides, at best, only a partial explanation for the differences in training observed across individuals. In contrast, variables invoked by the institutional literature (i.e. occupation level; industry; ownership type; and market structure) are highly significant and account for a much greater proportion of the variance in training observed across workers. Other institutional factors such as the presence of a union and a human resource department were strong positive predictors of job-related training. But most important were product market strategy and employee voice, as an important channel by which training is optimally delivered inside the firm.
Fang, T, Gunderson M., and Lin C. (2020). The Impact of Minimum Wages on Wages, Wage Spillovers and Employment in China: Evidence from Longitudinal Individual-Level Data,” Review of Development Economics.
Abstract: We utilize the substantial variation in both the magnitude and frequency of minimum wage changes that have occurred in China since its new minimum wage regulations in 2004 to estimate their impact on wages, wage spillovers, and employment. We use county‐level minimum wage data merged with individual‐level longitudinal data from the Urban Household Survey for the period 2004–2009, spanning the period after the new minimum wage regulations were put in place. Our results indicate that minimum wage increases raise the wages of otherwise‐low‐wage workers by a little less than half (41%) of the minimum wage increases. Depending on the specification, these wage effects also lead to a 2–4 percentage point reduction in the probability of being employed, with a 2.8 percentage point reduction being our preferred estimate. We also find statistically significant but very small wage spillovers for those whose wages are just above the new minimum wage, but they are effectively zero for those higher up in the wage distribution.