The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the financial crisis – and identification of policy responses and best practices. This has been done in six specific tasks leading to the six reports: Task 1 Survey on the situation of the EU textile and clothing sector Task 2 Report on research and development Task 3 Report on SME situation Task 4 Report on restructuring Task 5 Report on training and Education Task 6 Report on innovation practices This present report of task 5 provides an in-depth analysis of what has been done in terms of VET developments over the last decade in three key TC regions in Europe. It investigates industry ‘s attitudes and practices, education and training changes, and eventually tries to identify how mismatches between skills supply and demand have been addressed there and could possibly be addressed in the future in other regions of Europe.
In this paper we analyze the effects if two countries, with different settings on the labor market, open their capital markets. To do this we follow the ideas of New Institutional Economics in combination with a new model of economic growth. We will use a Leontief production function, where we derive the distribution of income by using an approach stemming from conflict theory, to highlight some new insights into the question whether an open world capital market enhances the overall welfare. First of all, using conflict theory, we will pay some attention to the micro-economic foundation of a Harrod-Domar model. At least we want to analyze what will happen if for e.g.: China opens the capital market to the EU zone, where the institutions in both regions are very different. We will show that this will always lead a race to the bottom from the view of workers in the former developed region.
Although lifetime employment was once commonplace, the situation has changed dramatically over the last century. The group of precarious workers has increased, and with it, the size of the precariat. Although there is a body of research on how precarious workers perceive the effect of their precarity on their social, psychological, and economic well-being, there is no research on the needs of precarious workers. In this article, we report the findings of an exploratory study about precarious worker’s needs. The findings show that the precariat has a diversity of needs, ranging from the need for a higher income to the need for a change in the discourse on self-reliance. Most of the needs are targeted toward the government and are not only related to labor. This is, however, contradictory to the ideology of downsizing the welfare state, in which governments focus on creating more temporary or steppingstone jobs. The needs show that the measures orientated toward the labor market are insufficient because they meet only a marginal part of the needs of the precariat.
Despite Dutch Hospitality industry’s significant economic value, employers struggle to attract and retain early career professionals at a time when tourism is forecasted to grow exponentially (Ruël, 2018). Universally, hospitality management graduates are shunning hospitality careers preferring other career paths; stimulating the Dutch Hospitality to find innovative ways of attracting and retaining early career professionals. Following calls from the Human Resource Management (HRM) community (Ehnert, 2009), we attribute this trend to personnel being depicted as rentable resources, driving profit’’ often at personal expense. For example, hotels primarily employ immigrants and students for a minimum wage suppressing salaries of local talent (Kusluvan, et al 2010, O’Relly and Pfeffer, 2010). Similarly, flattening organizational structures have eliminated management positions, placing responsibility on inexperienced shoulders, with vacancies commonly filled by pressured employees accepting unpaid overtime jeopardizing their work life balance (Davidson, et al 2010,). These HRM practices fuel attrition by exposing early career professionals to burnout (Baum et al, 2016, Goh et al, 2015, Deery and Jog, 2009). Collectively this has eroded the industry’s employer brand, now characterized by unsocial working hours, poor compensation, limited career opportunities, low professional standing, high turnover and substance abuse (Mooney et al, 2016, Gehrels and de Looij, 2011). In contrast, Sustainable HRM “enables an organizational goal achievement while simultaneously reproducing the human resource base over a long-lasting calendar time (Ehnert, 2009, p. 74).” Hence, to overcome this barrier we suggest embracing the ROC framework (Prins et al, 2014), which (R)espects internal stakeholders, embraces an (O)pen HRM approach while ensuring (C)ontinuity of economic and societal sustainability which could overcome this barrier. Accordingly, we will employ field research, narrative discourse, survey analysis and quarterly workshops with industry partners, employees, union representatives, hotel school students to develop sustainable HRM practices attracting and retaining career professionals to pursue Dutch hospitality careers.
Momenteel kan 50% van de Nederlandse glasgroentebedrijven niet aan de betalingsverplichtingen voldoen en heeft nog eens 15% geen geld om in het bedrijf te investeren. Als de sector niet verandert, komt ook de laatste 35% in de problemen. Glastuinbouwers hebben de concrete vraag hoe zij hun marges kunnen vergroten en hoe zij tot een rendabele business case kunnen komen. Een belangrijke oorzaak lijkt de huidige marktstructuur te zijn, waarin er geen sprake is van een transparant proces van prijsvorming tussen de vraag van consumenten en retail en het aanbod van glastuinbouwers. Gevolg is dat de glastuinbouwers te weinig verdienen en de consument lang niet altijd de gewenste kwaliteit krijgt. In dit project wordt door Hogeschool Inholland samen met glastuinbouwers, ketenpartijen en kennisinstellingen TU Delft en LEI Wageningen UR, een innovatieve marktsimulatie ontwikkeld op basis van agent technologie. De te ontwikkelen simulatie biedt telers en ketenpartijen een ?veilige? omgeving om te ?experimenteren?. Met de simulatie wordt onderzoek verricht naar markt functioneren en de mogelijkheden voor verbetering van de business cases van glastuinbouwers door producten op een meer onderscheidende wijze tegen een goede marge in de markt te zetten. Het onderzoek leidt tot nieuwe kennis over a) het functioneren van de huidige, niet-transparante, markt in de glastuinbouw; b) mogelijkheden om met nieuwe marktmechanismes en ketensamenwerkingen, business cases van MKB glastuinbouwers te verbeteren en c) de mogelijkheden om met agent technologie een complexe markt te modelleren. Daarnaast is de simulatie ? bij gebleken succes ? meteen de opstap voor een mogelijke nieuw grootschalig marktmechanisme voor de glastuinbouwsector, zoals gedistribueerde ?digitale veiling(en)?.
