Publications

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) closed with a statement signaling the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era, a just and equitable transition, deep emissions cuts, and scaled-up finance. Decarbonization and green transition more broadly are recognized as essential to green recovery and will inevitably be implemented, but governments struggle with the how and when and how to pay for policy questions. Often, the green transition is seen more as a challenge than an opportunity for development. One policy instrument to move to a low-carbon pathway is a carbon tax, which would disincentivize carbon-intensive activities, and the revenues
generated could be recycled to finance climate actions. When climate actions, such as renewable energy investments and
energy efficiency programs, are designed in a way that stimulates job creation, a double dividend can be achieved: lower emissions and more jobs. The paper assesses different policy designs around a carbon tax regime and shows simulation results for direct and indirect implications for jobs using the MINDSET model, a price endogenous MRIO hosted by the World Bank.

Many business owners grapple with persistent challenges, such as low productivity, low profits, and low earnings. Addressing these challenges prompts questions such as: What program design best supports entrepreneurs? How can we reach all microentrepreneurs, including women and subsistence entrepreneurs? And how can entrepreneurs acquire the skills to run a successful business and tap into new markets or high return sectors?

Livestock is one of the major livelihood support systems and a social safety net in Uzbekistan. It constitutes about 50 percent of the agriculture gross domestic product (AgGDP) and accounts for about 27 percent of the agricultural employment, including in primary production and along livestock value chains.

In connection with the IDA19 capital replenishment, the World Bank Group (WBG) made a Policy Commitment (PC) to launch a pilot program to assess the employment impacts of IDA projects. The objectives of this pilot program are to develop, test, and instill improved practices for estimating the direct and indirect jobs impacts2 of IDA-funded projects, both ex ante (before project implementation) and ex post.

Quantifying the jobs impacts of development interventions is a challenge, largely because much of the impact is indirect. Yet, given the tremendous jobs challenges in developing countries, these impacts are fundamental to designing and prioritizing more effective policies and investments. How can development institutions do a better job of taking them into account We piloted some approaches and share lessons here.

The objective of this note is to present and discuss the findings of piloting a task-based job matching tool developed by the World Bank and implemented in partnership with the Regional Labor Office of Pomerania, Poland. The aim of the pilot was to assess whether simple ML-based tools could contribute to improve the efficiency of PES delivery and job-seeking behaviors compared to rule-based, knowledge-driven approaches. By combining labor demand data from local occupational barometers and the descriptions of tasks in the national taxonomy of occupations, the tool provides jobseekers a menu of potential jobs available in the local labor markets that match the tasks performed in previous work experiences. Results show that jobseekers were satisfied with the proposed occupations resulting from the tool (as beyond their thinking) and had the intention to expand job search efforts, though job-seeking behaviors could not be monitored. Career advisers recognized that the lack of information on jobseekers’ education, skills, and preferences limited the efficiency of the proposed job matches.

Electricity plays a crucial role in health, safety, and participation in the modern world. The channels by which is contributes to economic development are still not fully understood. Especially in rural communities in low-income countries with high shares of subsistence farming, electricity access is often seen as game changer towards more diversified jobs and higher earnings. This paper analyses the effect of electricity access on occupational choices in six Sub-Saharan African countries, using a unique dataset from household surveys combined with electricity modules. It finds that, while the effect of electricity access on the decision for non-farm economic activities is positive, other factors such as educational levels, age, access to loans or land ownership also affect the decision. Overall, wages and earning in non-farm activities are higher in electrified regions and in some sectors, electrification also helps to close the gender pay-gap. However, wages and incomes in rural areas stay below the respective payments in urban areas, so that electricity access and non-farm activities will not keep workers from migrating and seeking better jobs in cities.

The livestock sector in Bangladesh plays a significant role in employment, contributing to 14.5 percent of overall employment and over one-third of the agricultural sector's total employment. The Livestock and Dairy Development Project (LDDP), a $579 million initiative funded by the World Bank, aims to create employment opportunities, promote climate-smart practices, and enhance productivity for smallholder farmers. This study's primary goal is to estimate the LDDP's job creation potential using two approaches. The first involved a sample survey of 2045 samples across dairy, cattle, and poultry value chains, while the second employed a social accounting matrix (SAM) multiplier model to estimate national-level job creation. The study used the full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs method to measure job creation, revealing that 100 workers in livestock production create 63 FTE jobs, with unpaid family labor accounting for 46.7 percent, self-employment for 39.2 percent, and wage employment for 14.1 percent. Based on the data collected, the LDDP is expected to create 99,300 additional direct FTE jobs among beneficiary farms. Additionally, the SAM multiplier model indicates that LDDP’s investment in the livestock sector is projected to generate 164,000 additional jobs, with livestock farming activities creating the largest share.

To facilitate cross border trade, four cross-border markets (CBMs) were set up between Afghanistan and Tajikistan in GBAO region of Tajikistan, namely Tem (Khorog), Ishkoshim (Ishkoshim district), Ruzvai (Darvaz district), and Khumrohi (Vanj district). The CBMs were opened in 2007 and actively functioned until 2016 on a weekly basis. The CBMs are managed by the local government with the security arrangements provided by the border and customs personnel. In addition, two District Markets (DMs) in Murghab and Roshtqala district centers were set up. Both the CBMs and DMs contribute to the local economic development and provide an important source of employment, livelihoods and income opportunities through trade of similar types of goods and commodities for both Tajik and Afghan communities both in the immediate cross border and internal areas of GBAO region.

Good quality jobs are key to accelerating poverty reduction and enhancing social cohesion in Togo. Following a decade of significant progress in reducing poverty, the COVID-19 pandemic and of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are likely to have reversed some of these gains in living standards, however. The creation of more good quality jobs plays a key role in any country’s poverty reduction efforts, and will be essential to recover from recent shocks and reinforce earlier gains made in Togo. International research also points to lack of economic opportunities and insufficient social services as key drivers of radicalization of young people. Security threats in the northern region of the country have been growing, with terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso close to the Togolese border increasing in number and severity since 2018, and a first attack reported on Togolese territory in November 2021 in the Savanes region. Access to good quality jobs with a stable income for young Togolese will thus also be part of the solution to the security threats.

This edition of the MDTF Annual Report provides a comprehensive look at the progress and achievements of the fund under the three windows on (a) jobs lending at scale; (b) measurement agenda; and (c) influence through partnership and innovation. Under window 1, the report provides a summary of achievements by various country focused grants on improving the technical quality of WBG operations to maximize jobs outcomes. The authors also highlight the innovation in estimating indirect jobs impacts of IDA projects and development of gender smart solutions for IFC clients. Under window 2, authors highlight the upcoming Jobs Flagship report and the efforts to measure labor mobility and migration and their links to climate change. Under Window 3, authors highlight the progress made by grants under Jobs After COVID-19 innovation challenge and innovations in youth employment through the S4YE partnership.

Governments around the world provided various types of support to businesses and their employees affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, to preserve employer-employee links, organizational knowledge, and firm-specific human capital, and to facilitate the economic recovery. This note complements efforts dedicated to document jobs-related policy responses by providing an overview of some of the basic economic considerations for the design and assessment of these policy measures, with special attention to emerging economies. The authors outline a simple framework for policy assessment that accounts for the mechanisms that transmit COVID-19 shocks through the economy and the implications of the larger informal sector and fiscal constraints shared by many emerging economies. The authors then apply this framework to analyze an array of policies that have been deployed to prevent and address business failures and job losses in sectors directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic.

Efforts to improve youth employment depend on both demand and supply side interventions. Economy-wide programs to stimulate job growth and/or provide targeted wage subsidies to firms are meant to increase the demand for labor. Efforts to strengthen human capital seek to remedy supply-side imbalances, and interventions that reduce information asymmetries and gaps facilitate good matches between jobseekers and available jobs. This digest discusses the latter, interventions that favor good matches in the labor market when information is poor. This is particularly important in countries marked by high informality and limited access to information on jobs. Addressing unrealistic expectations is often key to impactful interventions.

This Knowledge4Jobs issue features some of the challenges and opportunities brought by the real-time labor market data, as a key source of information that can support development work towards more, better, and inclusive jobs. Even with its limitations, real-time labor market data can significantly enrich labor market monitoring and analysis. This data can be used to inform: (i) active labor market programs and workforce development policies to reduce skills mismatches and better align skills supply and demand; (ii) local economic development strategies; and (iii) equal employment opportunities policies and anti-discriminatory programs (including gender, age, race, and ethnicity), among others.

This Knowledge4Jobs issue features some new approaches to examine job challenges during the green transition. It draws on recent work informing a just coal transition in Eastern Europe as well as on some emerging attempts to analyze the job implications of greening the agri-food system. Both sectors (energy and agri-food) are at the heart of the green transition. Key questions to address include the number and profile of the workers affected (directly and indirectly), their preferences regarding job attributes and new employment opportunities, the potential for, and location of, new job opportunities (local versus elsewhere), and how best to assist the transition to new employment opportunities or out of the workforce. The set of recent papers in the first and second section below present a few innovative ways to address some of these questions. The trilogy of papers from the Wielkopolska, Silesia and Lower Silesia regions in Poland: 1) present a new bottom-up approach to calculate the number of workers indirectly affected by coal mine closures; 2) conduct discrete choice experiments to elicit the preferences of coal affected workers with respect to job attributes; and 3) develop a new AI-powered job matching tool to identify optimal alternative employment opportunities for affected workers (within the current labor markets or following new investments). The paper from Ruda Śląska maps the community’s sectoral preferences to repurpose the mines’ lands and assets, including for job creation. Assessing the number (and profile) of jobs affected is a major preoccupation across sectors. The “Jobs, greening and agri-food” paper does this using an existing, integrated agricultural assessment model. The second set of papers then lists some key references on which this recent work builds.

After Germany, Poland is the EU’s second largest coal producer and consumer.1 96 percent of EU-27 hard coal production, or 54.4 million tons, is extracted in Poland (EURACOAL, 2020). In 2020, over 40 percent of the country’s total energy supply (TES) and 70 percent of its electricity generation come from coal and lignite (IEA, 2022), the highest rate in Europe. Coal in Poland also continues to employ about 88,000 people directly in the mines, down from about 444,000 in 1989. Europe’s commitment to stop its fossil fuel imports from Russia following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is slowing down Poland’s coal phase-out to ensure energy security in Europe,2 but Poland remains committed to a complete coal mine closure by 2049.

The persistent lack of good jobs that is, an inadequate level or quality of jobs, inefficient and/or inequitable jobs outcomes is a key economic issue in developing (and some developed) economies. Yet policy responses often lack an understanding of the causes. While the proximate drivers, such as low productivity growth, slow capital deepening, or a lack of firms and other organized economic actors, may share patterns, the policy roots and circumstances of these outcomes vary a great deal by country. Thus, making progress in a meaningful and lasting way requires, in the first instance, a clear understanding of the binding constraints which, if alleviated, would result in a substantial structural improvement to jobs outcomes. Binding constraints could arise in a host of policies and institutions, including possibly inadequate human capital and labor market policies but also in infrastructure, regulatory, financial, judicial and other areas. This paper provides a data-driven approach and framework for diagnosing the truly binding constraints to better jobs. The approach is to rule out broad categories of constraints using economic logic and data, and to utilize an array of empirical indicators to test whether remaining candidate constraints are binding. While this paper outlines an exhaustive approach, the style of thinking and techniques can also be applied selectively to fill analytical gaps and ensure that key issues are not left unaddressed.

The agri-food system (AFS) employs about one third of the global workforce and contributes about one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This together with its large exposure to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation makes what happens in AFS central to the green transition and its implications for jobs and the structural transformation. Microeconomic evidence suggests that the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices will increase labor requirements, at least in the short run and at lower levels of incomes, when its mechanization is still limited. Econometric macro-model-based simulations suggest however that especially substantial investment in climate friendly agricultural R&D as well as soil and water preserving practices and market integration will more than offset the negative effects of climate change and even accelerate the structural transformation, especially in Sub Saharan Africa. Overall, the findings underscore the tremendous potential of increasing agricultural and climate friendly R&D investment for brokering an environmentally sustainable structural transformation. Repurposing of agriculture's current US$ 638 billion support package towards supporting more climate friendly practices, including to overcome the time lag between the moment of investment and the realization of the benefits, provides an important policy entry point.

This brief investigates differences in countries’ jobs-related policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four main patterns emerge. First, the type of labor policies adopted by countries varied greatly according to their income level. Low-income countries were more likely to implement public works programs but not other policies such as unemployment benefits, labor regulations, wage subsidies, training and placements policies, firm liquidity support, and cash transfers to workers. Meanwhile, countries with a more formal workforce and existing unemployment benefits systems were more likely to implement policies such as unemployment benefits and labor regulations. Second, low- and lower-middle-income countries devoted a lower share of their gross domestic product (GDP) to expenditure on new jobsrelated policies. Third, conditional on countries’ income group, the magnitude of the GDP shock did not have a statistically significant correlation with the adoption of different policies. This may reflect uncertainty in the extent of the GDP shock when the policy response was determined or noise in the measure of GDP. Finally, countries that adopted more stringent COVID-19 restrictions were more likely to adopt changes to labor regulations, specifically changes in working conditions, to try to soften the blow on workers. These results suggest that the policy response to the crisis in low- and lower-middleincome countries was constrained by the lack of resources, resulting in lower-cost policies with generally limited impacts on workers.

Modern inputs and mechanization are promoted across Africa to raise smallholder labor productivity and broker the structural transformation. Yet, adoption has remained low and the implications for returns to labor and labor allocation remain poorly understood. This paper explores the effects of different intensification packages on farm performance, market orientation, and food security using data from lowland rice farmers in Côte d'Ivoire. Employing a multinomial treatment effect model, the findings reveal that intensification increases land and labor productivity, especially when agro-chemicals and mechanized land preparation are combined. Returns to labor double to triple, inducing specialization and greater market orientation as well as greater food security, while productively releasing agricultural labor for other activities. Labor in agriculture becomes more waged. The gender balance remains the same. Child labor input does not decrease. The findings call for greater attention to labor productivity and confirm that agricultural intensification can pay, and enhance rural transformation.

Turkey is both a major transit and a destination country for migrants and refugees across the globe. As a result of the crisis in its southern border with Syria, Turkey has been hosting an increasing number of refugees and foreigners seeking international protection. As of 2021, in addition to hosting more than 3.7 million Syrians, who are under temporary protection, there were an estimated 330,000 asylum seekers and refugees from other nationalities.

The Agricultural Employment Support project combines labor demand and supply side interventions. As suggested by international experience (World Bank 2013), effective jobs interventions need to stimulate both the demand and supply of the labor market. Based on this global experience, the project combines i) supply side interventions focused on increasing employability (training, counseling) and facilitating access to jobs (intermediation, matching); and (ii) demand side interventions which would include (a) incentives to employers in the form of wage subsidies (b) technical assistance, (c) monetary and nonmonetary support to formalization (d) better market conditions through contract farming which would contribute to increased quality and quantity of inputs.

Employment in Turkish agriculture continues to remain highly informal owing to both to the nature of work in the sector as well as structural factors. Estimates suggest that in 2020 while 31 percent of all employment in the country was informal, the number was 84 percent in the agriculture sector. The nature of work in the sector which is predominantly seasonal, short-term, and low-skilled, the use of unpaid family labor on smaller farms, and the costs of writing formal labor contracts and registering workers with the Social Security Institution (SGK) contributes to the low rates of formalization. Further, long-standing structural, institutional, and policy constraints such as low productivity, limited domestic market integration, and distinct dualistic pattern in farm structures act as a binding constraint on growth and limit the sector’s ability to create good quality jobs amenable to formalization.

Informal employment is pervasive in labor markets where transient or highly seasonal occupations with low productivity dominate, such as the agricultural labor market. Informal work is a summary term for work conducted without paying taxes or social security dues, and sometimes involving conditions that are illegal under local labor laws. Even in high-income countries, agriculture is particularly prone to informal work arrangements. Informal agricultural laborers are vulnerable to exploitation, are often migrants or undocumented workers, and they neither have access to social security benefits nor contribute to the tax base.

Turkey has the highest number of refugees in the world with close to 3.8 million Syrian refugees. Turkey has been hosting an increasing number of refugees and foreigners seeking international protection, particularly since the conflict in Syria with around 3.8 million Syrian refugees currently being hosted in the country. This large number of refugees in the country has increasingly led to challenges in development, particularly as Syrian refugees have settled not only in the relatively well-developed provinces such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, but also in provinces with existing development challenges close to the southeastern border of Turkey with Syria. The increasing number of Syrian refugees in these provinces has led to higher competition for employment and social services, among others, with refugees providing an alternative workforce to natives particularly for less paid and informal jobs.

The need for jobs support in economies affected by forced displacement and conflict is high, with forced displacement at its highest level since the Second World War and poverty expected to be increasingly concentrated in economies affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). Developing impactful and cost-effective jobs support requires good data on program costs and benefits, but such information remains notoriously scarce in FCV and displacement situations. This study presents insights from a new dataset of cost and results in the jobs support project portfolios of Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Bank in six low- and middle-income economies affected by conflict and displacement. It analyzes results on the cost-efficiency of jobs support to inform design and budget planning, as well as results on cost effectiveness, with a view to informing choice between different modalities while taking into account additionality and sustainability of outcomes achieved.

This paper presents field experimental evidence that limited information about workseekers' skills distorts both firm and workseeker behavior. Assessing workseekers' skills, giving workseekers their assessment results, and helping them to credibly share the results with firms increases workseekers' employment and earnings. It also aligns their beliefs and search strategies more closely with their skills. Giving assessment results only to workseekers has similar effects on beliefs and search, but smaller effects on employment and earnings. Giving assessment results only to firms increases callbacks. These patterns are consistent with two-sided information frictions, a new finding that can inform the design of information-provision mechanisms.

Part of a three-region set of papers analyzing coal-related labor market challenges in Poland, this paper focuses on Wielkopolska, which is most advanced in the transition out of coal. Finding viable job transitions is of enormous importance. The findings call for a more territorial-oriented approach to brokering the coal transition, rather than a sectoral one. First, even though limited from a regional perspective (~ 4,000 workers), affected jobs are highly concentrated in a few already lagging and depopulating municipalities. Second, while coal-related workers are similarly skilled as other workers in Wielkopolska, non-coal related workers in the at-risk municipalities are substantially less skilled, exposing them to potential displacement effects. Finally, while ready to work and to be re-skilled, discrete choice experiments about their job attribute preferences show that all workers are averse both to commuting and relocating for work, even more so than in Silesia and Lower Silesia. Complementary social protection and employment support will be needed, and the paper suggests some policy options based on international experience. The paper concludes by illustrating how a big-data driven job-matching tool, calibrated on the Polish labor market, could be used to assist caseworkers in identifying “viable-job-transition-pathways” for affected workers as well as to help policymakers identify reskilling needs and attract investments.

Gender equality is key for sustainable and inclusive development. Greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative. It has been demonstrated for instance that as women’s education and health improve, so do the development outcomes of their children across countries. At the same time, studies show that giving power to women at the local level can lead to increases in the provision of important public goods such as water and sanitation.

Part of a three-region set of papers analyzing coal-related labor market challenges in Poland, this paper focuses on Silesia. The findings call for a more territorial-oriented approach to brokering the coal transition, rather than a sectoral one. First, the number of jobs directly linked to coal-mining in Silesia is substantial, with 72,000 employees in the mining conglomerates, and an additional 17,000 providing goods and services to the mines. Second, coal-related employment is heavily concentrated geographically: as much as 40 percent of the population of Bieruńsko-Iedziński is employed directly and indirectly in the mining sector, and 80 percent of the mining conglomerates' contract value goes to subcontractors within a 20km radius of the mines. Third, the coal sector is highly integrated among a few large firms: 28 percent of the indirect workforce is employed by 10 subcontractors. Fourth, workers in the mining conglomerates have lower foundational (but better technical) skills than their regional and national counterparts, especially those with lower education. Finally, while eager to work, discrete choice experiments about their job attribute preferences show that they are averse to both, commuting and relocating for work, even though less so than in Wielkopolska, yet more so that in Lower Silesia, the two other regions. Together this suggests that there are important welfare and political economic benefits to adequate job creation locally. The paper further advances a data-driven viable-job-matching tool specifically tailored to the Polish labor market and illustrates how it could be used to assess the potential of local labor markets and future investments to absorb the coal-affected workers accounting for their skills profile, re/upskilling needs, and job attribute preferences.

In 2020, Jobs Group extended the Jobs Multi-donor Trust Fund (MDTF) to Phase Two with support from the donors and the Jobs Steering Committee (JSC). In this phase, Jobs MDTF retains its original objectives of supporting high impact jobs strategies and advancing the global knowledge on effective policy solutions and expands its horizon to support large scale operationalization of the jobs agenda in the WBG. The fund was restructured into three windows that reflect the updated objectives, window 1 on Jobs Lending at Scale; window 2 on Measurement agenda; and window 3 on Influence through Partnership and Innovation. In 2021, Jobs MDTF advanced work under the three windows and this annual report summarizes key achievements across different work streams.

Part of a three-region set of papers analyzing coal-related labor market challenges in Poland, this paper focuses on Lower Silesia. The findings call for a more territorial-oriented approach to brokering the coal transition, rather than a sectoral one. First, while the number of people directly and indirectly affected by coal mine closures in Lower Silesia (~5,500) is relatively small compared to the total regional labor force (<1%), affected workers are heavily concentrated geographically. Second, workers in heavily affected municipalities have lower foundational (but better technical) skills than their regional and national counterparts, and already operate in lagging local economies. Third, while eager to work, discrete choice experiments about their job attribute preferences show that they are averse to both, commuting and relocating for work, even though less so than in Silesia and Wielkopolska, the two other regions. Together this suggests that there are important welfare and political economic benefits to adequate job creation locally. The paper further advances a data-driven viable-job-matching tool specifically tailored to the Polish labor market and illustrates how it could be used to assess the potential of local labor markets and future investments to absorb the coal-affected workers accounting for their skills profile, re/upskilling needs and job attribute preferences.

Cameroon’s high employment levels mask widespread precariousness and rural-urban inequality. Labor market vulnerability—either detachment or weak attachment—is particularly acute among youth (ages 15 to 35), who are often uninterested in agriculture yet unable to access better opportunities in urban areas. Using Latent Class Analysis (LCA), a non-parametric method that segments a heterogeneous population into groups sharing similar characteristics, we identify distinct profiles of youth experiencing labor market vulnerability. The largest groups in urban and rural areas consist of mostly men with some education who work full time in the informal sector, either as own-account workers or subsistence farmers. In addition, we identify five groups as priorities for policy intervention. First, two groups making up 9 percent of out-of-school youth, predominantly married women, are involuntarily inactive and present an opportunity for improved human capital utilization. Second, a third group (14 percent) includes women in rural areas employed as contributing family workers, while two other groups (12 percent) comprise women facing multifold vulnerabilities (i.e., a combination of unpaid, temporary, and part-time work). Tailored interventions for these three groups would most impact poverty reduction.

Agricultural firms in developing countries may decide to implement aggregation schemes, typically through contract farming arrangements (CFAs). The firms’ rationale for engaging in aggregation is likely to be based on their own anticipated financial gains. But research shows that CFAs can also increase the welfare of their smallholder participants (independent growers). When growers benefit and the CFA terms are set by a firm’s profit-maximizing decisions, the benefits deriving to growers can be seen as “jobs externalities” (i.e. labor income gains to third parties that are triggered by the firms’ actions in expanding the CFAs). The existence of such gains also implies that the aggregation scheme is helping to address market coordination failures by facilitating increased agricultural commercialization. A full appraisal of the impact of CFAs should therefore integrate the analysis of the firms’ and growers’ costs and returns. In this study, we assess the costs and returns to firms and growers from the expansion of seven existing aggregation schemes in Mozambique, using simultaneously gathered data from the firms operating the CFAs, the corresponding CFA participant farmers, and comparable nonparticipant farmers. As far as we know, this is the first attempt at integrated analysis of the impact on firms and independent growers of the expansion of CFAs. Our approach combines impact evaluation and cost-benefit analysis techniques, and yields estimates both of the financial returns to firms and of the CFAs’ full social returns (including the gains to the growers and to society at large). In most cases, we found that the growers gained more than the firms in the short term from the expansion of these schemes. In fact, growers’ incomes increased (relative to the comparators) in most of the schemes we analyzed. However, only half the schemes generated profits for the firms themselves in the three-year time window of this study. This poor short-term financial return to the aggregator firms may explain why CFAs have expanded less than would seem to be justified when the gains to growers are factored in. These findings might justify a public subsidy to catalyze the expansion of CFA schemes that are expected to be financially viable in the medium term. We estimated the subsidy amount that would be needed to raise the firms’ private returns to the market cost of capital (a benchmark for financial viability from the firms’ perspective). We found that the required subsidy was normally modest: it averaged less than 25 per cent of the firms’ expenditures on supporting new growers. Overall, our results support the case for the selective use of public resources to catalyze an expansion of aggregator systems in Mozambique and similar economies, and thereby improve smallholder growers’ welfare.

*Note: Revised version published on March 25, 2022* The widely shared objective of transition to cleaner energy and reduced dependence on coal presents tremendous challenges, not only to coal sector producers and workers, but because of the broader implications for other sectors in coal-producing nations. A large proportion of energy infrastructure is built around coal-fired power plants (even in non-coal producing countries), economic production structures are energy-intensive, and coal value chains are long. In regions where coal mining takes place, the effects of transition cut very deeply, especially in small, remote mining communities where the local economy depends on coal. The transition can create multiple disruptions: to jobs - both direct and indirect, to household incomes, to local economies heavily tied into the coal supply chain, to community well-being and social capital, and to local and regional government capacity and fiscal solvency. This issues paper analyzes the status of coal phase-out around the world, the magnitude and character of coal mining jobs and their spillovers in local economies, and the challenges associated with future labor transition. This report is part of a broader multi-sector effort by the World Bank to support coal regions confronting the realities of decarbonization and help lay the groundwork for achieving a just transition for all.

A decade since the spark of the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continues to suffer from limited creation of more and better jobs. Youth face idleness and unemployment. For those who find jobs, informality awaits. Few women attempt to enter the world of work at all. Meanwhile, the available jobs are not those of the future. These labor market outcomes are being worsened by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa explores ways to break these impasses, drawing on original research, survey data, wide-ranging literature, and young entrepreneurial voices from the region. The report finds that a prominent reason behind MENA’s unmet jobs challenge is a lack of market contestability in the formal private sector. Few firms in the region enter the market, few grow, and those that exit are not necessarily less productive. Moreover, firms in the region invest little in physical capital, human capital, or research and development, and they tend to be politically connected. At the macro level, economic growth has been mediocre, labor productivity is not being driven by structural change, and the growth of the stock of capital per capita has declined. New evidence generated for this report shows that the lack of dynamism is due to the prevalence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). They operate in sectors where there is little economic rationale for public activity and they enjoy favorable treatment—flouting the principles of competitive neutrality. Meanwhile, labor regulations add to market rigidity, while gendered laws restrict women’s potential. To change this reality, the state must reshape its relationship toward markets, toward workers, and toward women. The region must create a level playing field between SOEs and the private sector, replace labor rigidities with appropriate social protection and labor market programs, and remove barriers to women’s economic participation. Governments can also foster new sectors and occupations, gradually propelling market contestability and job creation. All reforms will have to rely on improved data capacity and transparency to create a new social contract between governments and the people of the region.

In mid-2020, the Government of Colombia launched a labor reform consultation process (Misión de Empleo) in response to a deterioration in pre-Covid19 employment indicators and changing economic and labor market conditions. Based on a comprehensive review of Colombia’s labor market performance for the 2009-2019 period, this report seeks to provide analytical underpinnings to this process. At the macro level, the report shows that employment in Colombia is insufficiently diversified relying almost exclusively on job creation in the services sectors. This exposes the labor market to cyclical changes in internal demand that are typical for commodity rich economies like Colombia. At the worker level, the report shows that the economy generates too few formal employment opportunities for those with fewer skills and those living in rural areas, implying low earnings, high rates of self-employment, and high levels of informality. At the firm level, the reports shows that the labor regulatory regime has contributed to strong increases in labor costs with important effects on entry and exit dynamics of firms contributing to a compositional shift towards larger, more capitalized, and more skill-intensive firms.

Africa’s rural population continues to expand rapidly and labor productivity in agriculture and many rural-off farm activities remains low. This paper uses the lens of a dual economy and the associated patterns of agricultural, rural, and structural transformation to review the evolution of Africa’s rural employment and its inclusiveness. Many African countries still find themselves in an early stage of the agricultural and rural transformation. Given smaller sectoral productivity gaps than commonly assumed, greater size effects and larger spillovers, investment in agriculture and the rural off-farm economy remains warranted to broker the transition to more and more productive rural employment. The key policy questions thus become how best to invest in the agri-food system (on and increasingly also off the farm) and how best to generate demand for nonagricultural goods and services which rural households can competitively produce. Informing these choices continues to present a major research agenda, with digitization, the imperative of greening and intra-African liberalization raising many unarticulated and undocumented opportunities and challenges.

This paper utilizes firm survey data to understand which formal private sector jobs are most at risk from COVID-19 or similar future crises, based on empirical evidence from two middle income economies. In particular, it estimates the importance for formal private-sector job losses of various COVID-19 pandemic-related labor market shocks and mitigating factors, such as the closure of non-essential industries, workers’ ability to perform their jobs from home, infection risks to workers, customers’ infection risk, global demand shocks, input supply constraints, employers’ financial constraints, and government support, in determining the level and distribution of job losses. This provides an empirical identification of the main risk factors for job loss and a basis for predicting the level and distribution of these losses due to the crisis. The methodology is applied to permanent formal private sector (PFPS) jobs in core productive manufacturing and services sectors (captured by World bank Enterprise Surveys) in Jordan and Georgia, which contain the requisite data to link occupational structure, task content, and firm-level shocks. Comparing empirical findings across the two, the paper assesses the degree of commonality of these risk factors. Job losses are projected for different groups within the employed population prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and compared with post-crisis labor force data. The results indicate that in these countries the level of job losses is predominantly due to a reduction in demand rather than a reduction in the supply of labor. Closures, global demand shocks, supply disruptions, and other unexplained demand side shocks are significant determinants of jobs lost. Sensitivity of employment to closures, supply disruptions, and sales shocks was of similar magnitude in both countries; however, variation in infection risk was a significant determinant of sales only in Georgia. At the same time, Georgian formal firms were better able to rebound their sales and hire back workers than formal firms in Jordan. Finally, the paper finds no evidence that firms with workers performing tasks that can be performed from home were better able to preserve jobs, given the dominant role of firm-level demand and supply chain shocks.

Labor regulations are important determinants of resource allocation, productivity, and labor market outcomes. They can protect workers’ rights, enhance job security, and improve working conditions. However, overly restrictive regulations can also increase business costs, becoming barriers to creating formal employment, particularly for vulnerable workers. This paper analyzes the key characteristics of labor market regulations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and benchmarks them against international practices. The main objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses in the regulations and to inform governments about policy options to enhance employment outcomes in the region. The paper focuses on labor laws and regulations concerning hiring, working hours, minimum wage, redundancy rules and cost, unemployment insurance, labor tax and social security contributions, and legal frameworks affecting women’s work. This paper finds that the region has generally flexibly hiring rules, but that redundancy regulations are relatively rigid and costly compared to international practices. Statutory minimum wages and labor taxes are moderate, with the exception of a few countries. Although many countries have made efforts to remove legal barriers for women workers, discriminatory laws still restrict their participation in the labor market. While labor market regulations vary by country, the findings suggest areas where there is clear scope to improve the design and implementation of labor market regulations to facilitate stronger formal labor demand and to enhance efficient resource allocation; and at the same time, to strengthen compliance to provide necessary protections to workers.

In our rapidly urbanizing world, mayors often see migrants as a burden to their city’s labor market and a threat to its development. Drawing on national household surveys and four secondary city case studies in Africa, this study finds that migrants—being younger, better educated and/or complementary to the resident labor force—usually strengthen the urban labor force. In secondary cities, labor market outcomes for migrants are at least as good as those for residents. Migrants also contribute increasingly less to urban population growth. Secondary cities thus appear well placed to leverage migration. This requires good urban management that develops land and labor markets, prepares for growth and benefits everyone, migrants as well as residents. Migrant specific interventions are warranted when divisions between natives and migrants are deep. Strengthening the financial, technical and planning capacity of towns to better integrate migrants is part and parcel of the good jobs agenda.

We show that for China the movement of more people into better jobs with higher incomes formed a very important explanation for the country’s long-term success in growth and poverty reduction. China’s exporting cities created a virtuous cycle of new wage-employment-creating investments by new businesses making new products. The rapid increase in urban labor demand drew hundreds of millions of workers from the rural “traditional” sector to the “modern” sector, providing them with more reliable waged incomes. This dramatically raised the share of waged employment in China’s economy and unleashed new middle-class demand for more income-elastic goods and services. Growth in urban wages was moderated by regulated rural to urban labor migration under the Hukou system. This raised returns to capital, which maintained business incentives to re-invest their profits in new goods and services for which new markets were opening. Production of cheaper manufactured goods for the world market was an important catalyst, but domestic demand for services in China has maintained the momentum.

Entry level formal sector jobs for Mexican youths offer low starting salaries but substantial wages growth of almost 40% over the first year. We experimentally test whether a six-months wage incentive can increase formal employment among secondary school graduates. Combining survey and high-frequency social security data, we offer four main findings. First, the incentive does not distort short-run choices of graduates planning to continue their education. Second, formal employment rates among graduates planning to enter the labor market increase by 12% over the first year, which is driven by a 27% increase in jobs with permanent contracts. Third, we document short-term gains in retention. However, once the incentive expires, hazard rates start to converge. Fourth, treatment effects are largest for graduates with reservation wages just above starting salary levels of formal jobs. Combined with evidence for very high discount rates, this highlights the importance of short-term benefits for youths’ career choices.

Ghana’s public works program, Labour-Intensive Public Works (LIPW), was initiated in 2010 with the goal of providing short-term employment opportunities to the poorest and building community assets. Public works programs have the potential to promote social inclusion by benefiting vulnerable groups, particularly youth and women. The LIPW program in its operational design, included provisions to support women workers, including having on-site crèches and latrines and provided flexibility of employment so that women could easily access the program. Although, the program did not exclude qualified youth, operational designs did not lay emphasis on youth engagement. The LIPW program could be positioned as a youth employment avenue, as well as promoting social inclusion and enhancing the overall well-being of its beneficiaries. As such, this study reviews the operational opportunities within the Ghana LIPW program design targeting women and youth and provides recommendations for enhancing social inclusion for these groups in future programming. This study will be useful for public works program implementers, as well as policy makers, looking to boost social inclusion within their programming.

The Mozambique Agricultural Aggregator Pilot (MAAP) research program investigated how jobs and earnings changed when seven different commercial aggregators worked with contracted growers in farm-based value chains in Mozambique in the period 2017-20. The study covered a range of crops and animal products including: cotton, sugar, maize, chickens, sesame and goats. It measured changes in the net earnings of the smallholders (to quantify the welfare effects for the growers) and the aggregators (to understand the profitability and financial sustainability of the schemes). So, the study provides new evidence on two metrics relevant to the design of public support to commercial aggregators: (a) the amount of the economic gains and their distribution between the commercial firms and smallholder growers; and (b) the marginal profitability of the commercial systems and (thus, implicitly) what subsidy amounts would make their expansion viable.

This report presents the results of the analysis of data collected on workers and clients using
Biscate, a digital labor market matching platform for informal services workers in Mozambique.
The platform aims to facilitate labor market intermediation of workers performing various
household services and clients looking for labor. Informational asymmetries and contractual
uncertainties might undermine both demand and supply of household services in this market.

This paper investigates the impacts of the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the employment of different types of workers in developing countries. Employment outcomes are taken from a set of high-frequency phone surveys conducted by the World Bank and National Statistics Offices in 40 countries. Larger shares of female, young, less educated, and urban workers stopped working. Gender gaps in work stoppage were particularly pronounced and stemmed mainly from differences within sectors rather than differential employment patterns across sectors. Differences in work stoppage between urban and rural workers were markedly smaller than those across gender, age, and education groups. Preliminary results from 10 countries suggest that following the initial shock at the start of the pandemic, employment rates partially recovered between April and August, with greater gains for those groups that had borne the brunt of the early jobs losses. Although the high-frequency phone surveys greatly over-represent household heads and therefore overestimate employment rates, case studies in five countries suggest that they provide a reasonably accurate measure of disparities in employment levels by gender, education, and urban or rural location following the onset of the crisis, although they perform less well in capturing disparities between age groups. These results shed new light on the labor market consequences of the COVID-19 crisis in developing countries, and suggest that real-time phone surveys, despite their lack of representativeness, are a valuable source of information to measure differential employment impacts across groups during a crisis.

Value Chain Development (VCD) approaches, and building country capacity to adopt them, represent important operational tools to help World Bank client countries harness private sector potential and remove job creation constraints to create more and better jobs, especially for youth, women, and other vulnerable groups. The WBG-coordinated pilot ‘Value Chain Development for Jobs in Lagging Regions, ‘Let’s Work’ Program in Tunisia’ targets pilot value chains that could provide job opportunities for poor or vulnerable groups in lagging regions. The project tests new tools to help inform VCD policies: (a) Cluster and value chain reinforcement initiatives (CRIs), and (b) Value chain and job focused surveys. A ‘VCD Training’, the central capacity building element of the of the Let’s Work program in Tunisia, aimed to build public administration capacity to analyze value chains and support private sector development, job creation, and competitiveness, with a focus on lagging regions. The World Bank designed and delivered the VCD Training in Tunis from April 5, 2016 to November 14, 2016. The eight VCs used for training purposes in the program all link to key WBG financed operations in Tunisia. Two of these value chains, olive oil and medicinal and aromatic plants, were also subjects of subsequent jobs surveys. The VCD Training built strong capacity for VCD analysis in Tunisia. The training helped establish an inter-ministerial ‘Taskforce’ and VCD ‘Platform.’ Overall, 27 civil servants received training, among whom 11 were evaluated as ‘ready to conduct value chain analysis and development work’ by the end of the training program; six of these worked as core members of the Government VCD Taskforce. The VCD capacity development has informed ongoing WBG-financed operations in Tunisia and has been used to train subsequent generations of recruits since the end of the project. All VCs analyzed show high potential for growth, which could lead to more and better jobs in the olive oil, the medicinal and aromatic plants, and tomato sectors.

The Dominican Republic experienced a stellar economic performance since the early 2000s. Upon closer inspection, however, progress has been slower than the aggregate indicators suggest. While labor productivity increased dramatically, real wages have been stagnant and informality remains stubbornly high. In other words, while the Dominican Republic’s aggregate economic performance was one of the best in the region, it has not resulted in better jobs. This report presents new findings on the main bottlenecks that are hindering the creation of better jobs in the Dominican Republic. It does so in three blocks. First, it describes the main trends in economic growth, its drivers, and implications for job creation. Second, it analyzes the skills of the labor force, and what are the factors contributing to the wide and persistent gender and youth gaps in the labor market. Third, it provides an in-depth analysis of factors constraining the demand for labor. The report concludes with policy recommendations to create more and better jobs.

‘Building back better’ has become a popular theme guiding the world’s post-Covid19 recovery efforts; in few middle-income countries this appears to be more pressing than in Guatemala. Over a decade of lackluster growth and stagnating productivity improvements have led to an acute shortage of quality jobs, the effects of which started to show well before the Covid19 pandemic. By applying the World Bank’s jobs diagnostics methodology and drawing on both micro- and macro-level data covering the period 2004–18, this report casts light on Guatemala’s most pressing structural jobs challenges. The report first documents Guatemala’s labor market symptoms, including high levels of informality, declining labor earnings, low female labor force participation, rising emigration, and limited internal migration. The symptoms are then analyzed in-depth to identify what drives Guatemala’s poor labor market performance. The report finds that insufficient formal job creation, a lacking dynamism in the formal sector, and low quality education in rural areas are key drivers of Guatemala’s labor market outcomes. The report concludes by proposing a set of key strategic priorities to unleash Guatemala’s jobs potential.

Mozambique is about to face two transformative opportunities for accelerating the pace of poverty reduction: the prospect of major resource inflows from the extraction of liquid natural gas (LNG) and other minerals, and the prospect of a significant demographic dividend. But to take advantage of these transformative opportunities, however, Mozambican policy makers will have to overcome several important challenges: it will be necessary to accelerate Mozambique’s structural transformation, both in sectoral and job quality terms.
Achieving a faster jobs transformation in the context of an extractives resource-driven economic model and capturing the demographic dividend of an expanding population are the key jobs outcomes at the basis of this Jobs Strategy Note, which rests on five pillars defined by the broad jobs’ challenges outlined, together with the overarching challenge of maintaining a stable macroeconomic and governance framework. While a successful sectoral transition from agriculture to non-agriculture largely depends on developments across markets and sectors, a successful job transition has more to do with factors affecting the functioning of the labor market. Although the ultimate objective is to achieve a successful transition to nonagricultural, wage-based employment, there is still considerable room for improving overall productivity and job quality in the informal and agricultural sectors.

The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic sharply reduced mobility and economic activity, disrupting the lives of people around the globe. This brief presents estimates on the crisis’ impact on labor markets in 39 countries based on high-frequency phone survey (HFPS) data collected between April and July 2020. Workers in these countries experienced severe labor market disruptions following the COVID-19 outbreak. 34 percent of respondents reported stopping work, 20 percent of wage workers reported lack of payment for work performed, 9 percent reported job changes due to the pandemic, and 62 percent reported income loss in their household. Measures of work stoppage and income loss in the HFPS are generally consistent with GDP growth projections in Latin America and the Caribbean but not in Sub-Saharan Africa, indicating that the phone survey data contributes valuable new information about the impacts of the crisis. Ensuring availability of such critical data in the future will require investments into statistical and physical infrastructure as well as human capital to set up Emergency Observatories, which can rapidly deploy phone surveys to inform decision makers.

The economic crisis caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sharply reduced mobility and economic activity, disrupting the lives of people around the globe. This brief presents estimates on the crisis’ impact on labor markets in thirty-nine countries based on high-frequency phone survey (HFPS) data collected between April and July 2020. Workers in these countries experienced severe labor market disruptions following the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Thirty-four percent of respondents reported stopping work, twenty percent of wage workers reported lack of payment for work performed, nine percent reported job changes due to the pandemic, and sixty-two percent reported income loss in their household. Measures of work stoppage and income loss in the HFPS are generally consistent with gross domestic products (GDP) growth projections in Latin America and the Caribbean but not in Sub-Saharan Africa, indicating that the phone survey data contributes valuable new information about the impacts of the crisis. Ensuring availability of such critical data in the future will require investments into statistical and physical infrastructure as well as human capital to set up Emergency Observatories, which can rapidly deploy phone surveys to inform decision makers.

Economic growth does not contribute enough to job creation. As shown in Merotto, weber and Aterido (2018), a bit more than half of growth episodes contributed to reducing unemployment. A significant part of this relationship between growth and jobs is centered around firms. Firms are more likely to hire when growing. For that reason, any discussion on how to get more jobs needs to respond to questions about firm performance. This review discusses the barriers to firm growth and performance, namely limited access to finance, frictions on the labor market, lack of know-how, limited access to technology and the role of markets. It synthesizes the main lessons on firm growth from firm-level experiments that address these constraints and when possible, focuses on the impacts of these interventions on jobs. The objective is to provide evidence that can guide practitioners who seek to promote jobs in the context of private sector development programming.

There are more informal workers than formal workers across the globe, and yet there remains confusion as to what makes workers or firms informal and how to measure the extent of it. Informal work and informal economic activities imply large efficiency and welfare losses, in terms of low productivity, low earnings, sub-standard working conditions, and lack of social insurance coverage. Rather than quibbling over definitions and measures of informality, it is crucial for policymakers to address these correlates of informality in order to mitigate the negative efficiency and welfare effects.

Women comprise half of the world’s adult population, and therefore potentially half of its labor force. Removing barriers that restrict women from entering the labor market is crucial for achieving equality, as well as to untap economic growth. The focus of this review is on female labor force participation (FLFP) instead of employment. Labor force participation captures the decision to actively engage with the labor market, while employment represents an equilibrium outcome. The distinction is often underemphasized, but it is not trivial, as these indicators move separately. Indeed, the global rate of female employment has remained high at around 94 percent, while the rate of FLFP has not yet surpassed 50 percent. This review identifies constraints around three key drivers of FLFP. First, the authors examine how constraints in endowments such as time, education, financial and social capital limit women’s participation. Second, authors review evidence on the role of internal factors such as choices, preferences, norms and beliefs on FLFP. Third, authors discuss how external constraints such as income shocks and demand-side factors inhibit active engagement in the labor market. Finally, the paper concludes with some lesson learned from policies to improve FLFP and draws up an agenda for future research.

The Jobs Group has developed a blog series based on the Jobs Solutions Notes. The Solutions Notes synthesize findings from the Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund (MDTF)-funded activities and other sources based on research, evaluations, pilots, and operations. Each Note succinctly analyzes efforts and challenges, and provides an evaluation of what has worked, and what does not. 

How to ease the impact of Covid-19 on displaced populations in low- and middleincome countries

Structural transformation can spur economic growth and development if it increases overall productivity growth. A labor market environment that enables workers and enterprises to transition smoothly across sectors and into more productive economic pursuits can enhance the effect of structural transformation on economic growth. This study examines Ghana’s recent record of structural transformation and labor market performance. Based on the findings, the study proposes ways to further transform the country’s economy, in a way that stimulates stronger, sustained growth and produces gainful, productive, and inclusive private employment. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated global economic crisis have posed a substantial setback to Ghana’s economic progress and plans, but these challenges also underscore the need for structural transformation that can both strengthen economic performance and improve labor conditions and outcomes.

A skills certificate program is a labor market intervention that seeks to improve communication between job-seekers and potential employers by offering a formal and
recognized evaluation of specific skills (e.g. numeracy, literacy, logical thinking). The program also provides job-seekers with an insight into their skill set and good job matches. This guide offers actors within government agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), donor agencies, and other institutions a flexible framework for delivering a skills certificate program to improve earnings for participants and support local employers to confidently consider hiring young talent.

Knowledge4Jobs October 2020: Jobs and Spatial Transformation

The Working Paper series is based on a set of studies covering different aspects of jobs in urban South Sudan, including jobs outcomes, macroeconomic environment, market-linked agriculture and surveys insights on business and enterprises.

This Jobs Solutions Note is intended to identify practical solutions for development practitioners and policymakers to design and implement policies and programs for the labor market integration of refugees and IDPs. The Note (a) identifies the specific obstacles that refugees and IDPs face when integrating the labor market, (b) highlights interventions designed to address those barriers, focusing on the World Bank, and (c) summarizes existing knowledge on what works. It builds on a comprehensive literature review on Jobs Interventions for Refugees and IDPs, and is part of a broader work on Supporting Jobs in Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Situations. The Note uses a broad definition of jobs as any income source, formal or informal, including employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship.

This report analyzes the consequences for the labor force of Western Macedonia’s (Greece) decarbonization as part of Europe’s new Green Deal. Already, the region records the highest unemployment rate of the country (27 percent in 2018). A survey of contractors suggests that about 16,000 jobs could potentially be affected by the closure of the mines (about 4,500 directly in coal and power production and another 11,000-11,500 indirectly supplying goods and services). It mainly concerns older and less educated, but medium-skilled workers. Many do not expect much of a future in Western Macedonia, with most of the better-skilled seeing themselves move to other regions. But much will also depend on the coal transition path chosen, including the timing and labor intensity of the power plant decommissioning and land reclamation plans, as well as those of the new alternative activities promoted. Timely consultations with the workers affected will also be critical.

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Salvadoran labor market between 2000 and 2017 and identifies the main bottlenecks preventing the creation of more and better jobs. It does so in three blocks. First, it describes the main trends in economic growth, its drivers, and implications for job creation. Second, it provides an in-depth analysis of factors constraining the demand for labor. Third, it analyzes which are the skills that the private sector is demanding, and what are the factors contributing to the wide and persistent gender and youth gaps in the labor market.

The Jobs Solutions Notes synthesize findings from the Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund (MDTF)-funded activities and other sources based on research, evaluations, pilots, and operations. Based on curated knowledge and evidence for a specific topic and relevant to jobs, the Jobs Solutions Notes provide key lessons, solutions and approaches synthesized from the experiences of the World Bank Group and partners in a digestible format.

As countries develop, agriculture’s role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions have shaped, and have been shaped by, these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold. In this process of structural transformation, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. Robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative to a diminishing labor supply. COVID-19 will reinforce trends of digitization and anti-globalization (including in food trade), while slowing economic growth and structural transformation. In the world’s poorest countries, particularly in Africa, labor productivity in agriculture remains at historically low levels. So, what role can the agri-food system play as a source of employment in the future? This viewpoint elaborates on these trends and reviews several policy options, including inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes, and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.

This study assesses jobs in businesses and NGOs in the towns of South Sudan. It is based on a 2019 business survey that includes informal and micro enterprises, as well as a dedicated survey of foreign-owned businesses. The business community is typical of a low-income post-conflict country, but with a particularly weak productive sector and an outsize importance of NGOs and foreign-owned businesses. Two in five commercial businesses are foreign-owned; they employ far more South Sudanese than foreign nationals, and source some inputs locally – though they could become more important customers. NGOs employ one in five workers in businesses, and while UN and aid agency procurement is a minor source of demand in Juba, it is a major factor in smaller markets, in particular for food and personal services. Business obstacles focus on insecurity, lack of demand (including due to inflation), no access to finance, and electricity. The study is one of a set of four reports assessing different aspects of jobs in urban South Sudan in order to formulate policy for recovery.

This study assesses the state of markets and of jobs in market-linked agriculture in the towns of South Sudan. It is based on a 2019 market trader survey end extensive qualitative work. Agriculture provides most urban livelihoods, and there is high potential for raising production. However, insecurity has disrupted all elements of agricultural markets, from production to the transformation of produce, trade networks, and demand. Market activity is recovering, but food system value chains are few and short. While most market activities are small-time and profits slim, most traders rely on their activities for most of their household’s income, and many provide jobs for hired helpers. Local products face competition from imports as insecurity makes it difficult for aggregators to operate. A lack of funds, bad and dangerous roads, low demand, and inflation are the most prominent obstacles to business in the markets. The study is one of a set of four reports assessing different aspects of jobs in urban South Sudan in order to formulate policy for recovery.

This study assesses the macro-fiscal framework for jobs in South Sudan, working with the limited macro-fiscal data available on the fiscal years 2019 and 2020. The macroeconomic environment could hardly be more difficult for South Sudanese looking to make a living. For workers, the dramatic contraction of non-oil output since the beginning of the conflict reflected a loss of job activities and a breakdown in market demand. A 60-fold increase in prices since before the conflict poses a serious obstacle to job activities, while an overvalued exchange rate weakens incentives. The oil sector is a big part of the economy, and the budget is dependent on oil revenue – but with weak governance, too little spending goes toward investment in development. The public sector in employment is large and a source of patronage, but it has an important function as a source of demand for goods and services. The study is one of a set of four reports assessing different aspects of jobs in urban South Sudan in order to formulate policy for recovery.

This study assesses jobs outcomes in the towns of South Sudan, based on a 2017 household survey and a dedicated 2019 youth jobs survey. It discusses how years of conflict have touched nearly all livelihoods, leaving few productive jobs, and causing high poverty. Most urban households diversify their job activities little, and rely on household work in agriculture, commerce or personal services, or they depend on a household member’s work for NGOs or as a public servant. Many young workers say they are ready to build from the less than attractive job activities available. Workers point to a lack of funding, insecurity, and low demand as the main obstacles to doing better. The study is one of a set of four reports assessing different aspects of jobs in urban South Sudan in order to formulate policy for recovery.

The Nicaragua Jobs Diagnostic applies the Bank´s standard Jobs Diagnostics tool to explore trends and macro
drivers of economic and jobs transformation, labor market outcomes from the supply side, and sources of job
creation from the perspective of the demand or private sector sides. The report shows that the distributions
of jobs and production (value added) do not show significant changes over the last 15 years. This finding is
directly linked to the slow urbanization and the predominance of subsistence agriculture in rural areas, thus
reinforcing and urging the need to shift the Nicaraguan economy towards higher productivity, employment
creation, and formalization to support future growth in jobs. The recommendations address structural and
short-term challenges focusing on labor and jobs growth. This report will serve the country and sector teams
as an entry point to explore future areas of interest, as it is designed to serve as a baseline to understand the
economic transformation trends until 2018; particularly in the event of the shock that shrank the economy by
more than 3 percent.

This report identifies some of the most binding constraints preventing products in targeted value chains in Tunisia from reaching strategic (high value added) markets and proposes a road map on how to strengthen their competitiveness on these market segments. The analysis is anchored in a strategic segmentation exercise and builds on the outputs of a Value Chain Development training program delivered by the World Bank to the members of Tunisia's "Task Force for Value chain and Cluster Development". The training program's tutors complemented and deepened the analyses started by trainees in the cases of the value chains for olive oil, tomatoes, and rosemary. The report provides an illustration of how such a value chain and cluster development approach can be leveraged to accelerate job creation and reduce inequalities between the leading and the lagging regions of Tunisia.

This report provides an overview of a World Bank activity to support structural change for competitiveness and employment opportunities in Tunisia's lagging regions based on value chain and cluster analysis. While state-level policy changes are necessary and important contributions to tackle low growth and job creation in a country, they are often not sufficient. To be effective, these policies need to be accompanied with interventions that address both market and government failures at the local level. The ultimate objective is to create more and better jobs in small and medium-size enterprises by strengthening their competitiveness in a diversified range of markets. The overview report provides the main findings of the value chain and jobs survey, the two related market analyses, and the local capacity building effort that supported the creation of the "Taskforce for Value Chain and Cluster Development" in Tunisia. Each aspect is also covered in a dedicated companion report.

This report describes the findings of the survey on olive oil value chain in the North West of Tunisia, focusing particularly on the current and potential jobs landscapes. The survey also benchmarks the performance of the value chain against other leading countries in olive oil industry to determine potential productivity gaps and areas for improvements to ultimately increase the sectors' competitiveness and create more and better jobs. Together with the companion report on olive oil market segmentation, it provides insights on potential areas for policy interventions. This study is part of the "Value Chain Development for Jobs in Lagging Regions - Let's Work Program in Tunisia" which aims to identify some of the most binding constraints affecting the creation and productivity of jobs within targeted value chains in a lagging region in Tunisia and inform relevant World Bank Group lending projects currently in preparation to help tackle these constraints.

This report describes the findings of the value chain and jobs survey on the Medicinal and Aromatic Plants ("MAPs") in the North West of Tunisia. The survey also benchmarks the value chain against other leading countries in the MAPs industry to determine potential productivity gaps and areas for improvements to ultimately increase the sectors' competitiveness and create more and better jobs. This report is part of the "Value Chain Development for Jobs in Lagging Regions - Let's Work Program in Tunisia" which aims to identify some of the most binding constraints affecting the creation and productivity of jobs within targeted value chains in a lagging region in Tunisia and inform relevant World Bank Group lending projects currently in preparation to help tackle these constraints.

The report presents an analysis of the jobs portfolio for Nepal covering WB operations as well as Development Partners’ (DP) activities, with the objective of understanding the approach towards jobs specific targets and identify gaps to influence future investments. This portfolio review looks at individual project interventions and the balance of the portfolio as a whole, to see how they align with national priorities and incorporate jobs-relevant outcomes. The analysis looks at the type of interventions (macro and regulatory, sectoral and labor policies) and their specific jobs outcomes including creation, quality and inclusion.

Nepal’s economy is gradually shifting from largely subsistence agriculture to more modern industry and services. Using data from labor force surveys, the 2018 Economic Census and a 2019 survey of SMEs, the report concludes that Nepal’s economy is making great strides towards better work opportunities for its labor force, but not all job-seekers are able to access good-quality jobs…especially women. In the last decade, large numbers of men have entered jobs in construction, manufacturing, commerce and transportation, among others; even though most of these are informal jobs or temporary wage jobs, they are nevertheless more productive and provide improved livelihoods compared to traditional low-productivity farm work. Women, on the other hand, have not transitioned in significant numbers. Nepal’s structural transformation has been slowed by various impediments. Nepal’s dramatic topography makes it hard for many workers to access wage jobs and costly for producers to transport goods and connect to consumers. Gendered social norms limit female labor mobility and work opportunities, and subsistence activities remain prevalent. Most firms are micro-sized and have low productivity. SMEs mainly target small local markets rather than exporting or connecting to global value chains. Workers’ skills are generally low, and employers struggle to recruit higher-level skills needed to increase their product quality, expand operations and create more jobs. The report provides a detailed set of policy recommendations for improving job outcomes through (a) fostering SME productivity and growth; (b) improving the business environment and labor market policies; (c) increasing the individual, family and economy-wide benefits of international migration; and (d) preparing and connecting women and youth to better job options including entrepreneurship.

Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) often struggle to integrate the labor market. Even where they have the unrestricted right to work their labor market outcomes lag behind those of other groups, at least in the short- to medium-term. This literature review brings together two strands of research to inform the design of successful job interventions in this context: the evidence on how forced displacement impacts those forcibly displaced in their economic lives and the existing knowledge on jobs interventions for refugees and IDPs.

This study of Nepal’s SME sector is based on a survey of 932 firms located in 6 districts and spanning four sectors: agri-processing, manufacturing, tourism, and other services. The firm survey, conducted during May-July of 2019, sheds light on why entrepreneurs in Nepal started their business (for example, out of necessity, or to seize an opportunity), the main activities of these firms, the correlates of firm performance, and the factors impeding firms’ capacity to expand and create jobs. The study examines the SME ecosystem, maps existing business support organizations in Nepal and the services they provide, and assesses the business climate, based in part on employer input through key informant interviews. The analysis finds that most surveyed entrepreneurs aspire to grow but are constrained by lack of information, lack of advice, inability to access appropriate and affordable finance, and lack of skilled workers. Improving access to business support and making it easier for firms to raise investment finance could make a considerable difference to their performance and to the economy.

This Jobs Note is a result of collaboration between S4YE/Jobs Group and Rand Corporation (an S4YE partner) . It builds on research covering the three countries with the highest concentration of Syrian refugees displaced since 2011: Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. It is intended to inform policymakers and practitioners on the barriers that Syrian refugees, especially women, face in securing work to earn a livelihood. This Note highlights practical solutions that have been designed and implemented by the World Bank and other S4YE partners including ReBootKamp, Education for Employment-Tunisia, Youth Business International, and the International Labour Organization. While not specific addressing internally-displaced persons (IDPs) within Syria, this Note could serve as a blueprint for examining and addressing many of the same barriers women face in Syria.

Governments often aim to influence the amount and sectoral allocation of private investments through explicit or implicit subsidies. The rules used to select projects to benefit from subsidies may vary, depending on the policy objective. This paper develops a general framework to allocate subsidies to private investments in the presence of jobs-linked externalities (JLEs). JLEs emerge when wages exceed the opportunity cost of labor (labor externalities), or when there are social gains from creating better jobs for some classes of worker, such as women or youth (social externalities). Like all externalities, JLEs create a gap between private and social rates of return. Investments can be socially profitable (once the corresponding JLEs are internalized) but the private returns may be too low for the firm to go ahead. JLEs help to explain why many developing countries see insufficient investment in projects that would reallocate labor towards better jobs. The concept of JLEs is well established in economic literature, but there is a need for better operational approaches to address them. Like other externalities, JLEs can be corrected using a variety of possible subsidies (such as: grants, subsidized infrastructure, credit, training, technical assistance and tax exemptions). But doing this efficiently and at scale this requires mechanisms to (a) estimate the value of the externality and (b) discover the amount of subsidy needed to trigger the private investment. This paper shows that the optimal way to allocate subsidies to offset JLEs is through a competitive bidding process which selects projects based on the estimated amount of JLEs per dollar of subsidy. The bidding process provides an incentive to investors to reveal the subsidy needed for a project to become privately viable. We show that the proposed approach maximizes the jobs impacts of a given amount of fiscal resources that has been allotted to support better jobs outcomes.

This report outlines 5 main policy channels for interventions to help the Sri Lankan economy modernize and move beyond yesterday’s labor-intensive strategies to more skill-intensive employment in competitive firms: reducing barriers to firm growth and productivity, revising labor market, government employment, and competition policies; enhancing youth and women's capacity to obtain better jobs; increasing the productivity of the self-employed; and improving matching of job seekers with employers.

This paper presents the rationale, the methodology and the results of the application of an innovative social rate of return (SRR) methodology in the context of an investment project (Gaza Solar Power project) financed through the Finance for Jobs (F4J) Series of Projects (SOP) in West Bank and Gaza. A key assumption behind this work is that creating jobs through private sector investment generates benefits above the market returns to the factors of production (capital, labor, and land). Moreover, in instances where the market returns would not be sufficient for the investment to take place because of elevated risks and market failures, these benefits constitute additional social returns that can justify and merit public financing support to enable fundamentally sound commercial investment to proceed and the benefits to be generated. The paper presents the methodology applied through the use of discrete choice experiment (DCE) in a cost-benefit analysis to better approximate a measurable social value to the benefits (jobs-linked externalities) generated by the investment project in Gaza.

As countries develop (and food saturation takes hold), agriculture’s role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system (AFS) also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions both have shaped and have been shaped by these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold, affecting agricultural labor and skill demands. In this process, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met largely by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet, anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative. Agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. In the world’s poorest countries, particularly in Africa, labor productivity in agriculture remains at historically low levels. So, what can the role of agriculture as a source of employment be in the future? This viewpoint elaborates on these trends and reviews a number of policy options, including inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.

The objective of this note is to discuss key design features of wage subsidies schemes in the context of COVID-19. Wage subsidies amidst the health crisis are aimed at reducing layoffs, by helping firms to reduce costs and avoid severance pay, and helping workers to receive some support during the crisis. Many of the design considerations are thus different from regular wage subsidies.

The WBG’s Jobs Group has developed a standardized Jobs Diagnostic toolkit to help countries and development practitioners identify the key problems in creating better quality jobs with economic growth, whilst improving access to better jobs for vulnerable groups. These guidelines describe the main steps involved in a Jobs Diagnostic. The note first describes the approach to collecting and using benchmarks to interpret data symptoms from indicators derived from standardized tools. The guidelines then suggests how to prioritize the key problem from these symptoms, and how to diagnose and verify it’s cause with other data sources. Finally the guidance provides public policy considerations in considering what to prescribe as solutions to treat the cause of the main jobs problem. A fuller set of guidance will be made available online for each step. A working paper setting out these considerations (Lachler and Merotto (2019)) is available on the Jobs Group website: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/jobsanddevelopment/publication/jobs-and-development-list-of-publications. For more details about Jobs Diagnostics Data, Tools, Guidelines, and Training please visit:
http://datatopics.worldbank.org/JobsDiagnostics/index.html

The WBG’s Jobs Group has developed a standardized Jobs Diagnostic toolkit to help countries and development practitioners identify the key problems in creating better quality jobs with economic growth, whilst improving access to better jobs for vulnerable groups. These guidelines describe the main steps involved in a Jobs Diagnostic, offering examples. This note first describes the approach to collecting and using benchmarks to interpret data symptoms from indicators derived from standardized tools. The guidelines then suggests how to prioritize the key problem from these symptoms, and how to diagnose and verify it’s cause with other data sources. Finally the guidance provides public policy considerations in determining what to prescribe as solutions to treat the cause of the main jobs problem. Annexes include: (i) a guided enquiry to support the collection of indicators that serve as symptoms in the diagnosis, (ii) a discussion of alternative labor market models, (iii) a note on market failures that affect jobs outcomes, and (iv) a discussion of constraints and syndromes that shape jobs strategies. A shorter set of guidance is available on the Jobs Group website: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/jobsanddevelopment/publication/jobs-and-development-list-of-publications. For more details about Jobs Diagnostics Data, Tools, Guidelines, and Training please visit: http://datatopics.worldbank.org/JobsDiagnostics/index.html

The ‘Jobs M&E Toolkit’ provides a package of resources for project teams and clients to support mainstreaming the jobs agenda in World Bank Group (WBG) lending operations and beyond.

Este documento analiza las opciones de políticas a corto plazo para gestionar los impactos de la crisis del COVID-19 en el empleo. Este documento se orienta hacia el mercado laboral y al contexto institucional de la mayoría de los países de bajos y medianos ingresos donde existe mucha informalidad y donde las instituciones existentes a menudo carecen de mecanismos para atender efectivamente a las empresas y los trabajadores en el sector informal. El documento incluye políticas complementarias dirigidas hacia: 1) ayudar a las empresas a sobrevivir y retener a los trabajadores; 2) brindar protección a quienes pierden sus empleos y ven sus medios de vida afectados significativamente; y 3) facilitar el empleo alternativo y el apoyo a la inserción laboral para quienes no tienen trabajo (ALMP- por las siglas en inglés de Active Labor Market Policies "Políticas Activas del Mercado Laboral").

This note discusses short-term policy options for managing the employment impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.
The note pays attention to the labor market and institutional context of most low and middle-income
countries where informality is large and where existing institutions often lack mechanisms to effectively
reach businesses and workers in the informal sector. The note covers complementary policies aimed at: 1)
Helping businesses survive and retain workers; 2) providing protection for those who do lose their jobs and
see their livelihoods significantly affected, and 3) facilitating alternative employment and employability
support for those who are out of work (ALMP).

The WBG's Jobs Group has developed a standardized Jobs Diagnostics tool to help countries identify key challenges in the effort to create jobs, improve the quality of jobs, and provide access to jobs. One important dimension of a good jobs diagnosis is to uncover gender disparities in labor market outcomes and understand the underlying factors that cause those disparities. The Jobs Diagnostic tool enables the user to identify priority jobs-relevant gender challenges through the production of an extensive set of sex-disaggregated indicators and regression analyses, employing standardized household and enterprise data. Underlying constraints can be further explored, through complementary in-depth analysis of country-specific quantitative and qualitative information.

Trend growth in Uganda’s economy has not been fast enough to create enough jobs with higher earnings for one of the world’s fastest growing workforces. With almost three quarters of young people still joining the workforce on farms, Uganda’s economic transformation into off farm waged jobs in urban areas must be hastened for faster economic growth. This report identifies ten key facts from a Jobs Diagnostic analysis which describe the main jobs challenges Uganda faces. It then sets out policy recommendations for a strategy for jobs and economic transformation which focuses on creating more waged jobs in Uganda, encouraging mobility into better jobs in urban areas, accelerating transformation of Uganda’s agriculture, and fostering inclusion into better jobs.

The rapid transformation of agri-food value chains in Africa and other developing countries hasimportant implications for economic growth and poverty reduction. Policy makers increasinglyrecognize this but there is a need for a better understanding of what value chain transformationentails and what the main policy options are. This paper provides an overview and analysis ofdifferent value chain models that have emerged in the past decades and reviews the literatureon the main development implications. We discuss and categorize existing policy initiativesthat aim to stimulate inclusive value chain development. Based on this review we identifylessons and implications for policy makers.

Improving jobs outcomes—especially for poor people—is at the center of Honduras' development agenda. This report shows how jobs are related to persistently high poverty and disappointing growth over the last 20 years and suggests ways to reduce poverty and encourage growth in the future. It is organized in three main sections. The first section, Jobs, growth and poverty, provides an overview of how growth and poverty trends relate to Honduran jobs. The second section focuses on Labor supply challenges, including the growth and quality of labor supply; it analyses demographics, labor force participation rates, education, and training. The third section turns to Private sector growth analyzing factors influencing labor demand in the private sector, discussing the investment climate; distribution of job types (formal and informal) across firms, sectors, and households; and public programs to create better jobs for poor people. The report concludes with a section summarizing Policy recommendations to improve jobs outcomes in Honduras.

Agriculture has been a major employer across the globe and is at the center of discussions about poverty reduction and economic development. Yet, as countries develop, agriculture’s role as employer declines. Robots can now do many of the remaining agricultural tasks. Rising anti-immigration sentiment also challenges the opportunity to address farm labor shortages in higher income countries through legal migration. So, what is the future of work in agriculture?

This multisectoral Jobs Diagnostic provides a comprehensive overview of Pakistan's job market, with the aim of informing key policy areas. It investigates a host of factors associated with labor outcomes, such as the general macroeconomic environment and job-specific conditions, workers' education and skill levels, labor market segmentation and disparities, structural transformation, and workers' mobility. It highlights issues related to job creation, quality, and access by looking at past and present trends in the labor market. It also provides a global and regional comparison of key dimensions of the job market, in an effort to assess Pakistan's position. Finally, it highlights a prioritized set of interventions to address key priorities on the jobs agenda that will focus on quantity, quality, and inclusiveness of jobs.

Data on employment shares by sector show the rising importance of service jobs as countries get richer – and a corresponding decline in the share of agriculture jobs. Manufacturing, in contrast, plays a much less important part in the shift to higher incomes and it rarely accounts for more than one-fifth of all jobs in an economy.

Perhaps the most fundamental finding from Jobs Diagnostics is that it isn’t adding more of the existing stock of jobs that raises a country’s per capita income. Rather, it is improving the productivity of a country’s jobs that matters more.

Happy 2020! We are starting off the new year with a focus on gender gaps in employment. Across the globe, women face inferior work opportunities compared to men. Women are less likely to participate in the labor market, and when they do work, they are paid less and are less likely to work in formal employment. They also have fewer opportunities for business expansion or career progression. Many factors contribute to the gender “jobs gap”- including bearing a disproportionate share of childcare and domestic work, more limited physical mobility, social norms, having less access to financial services and skills training programs. These are challenges in both high- and low- income settings.

In the past decade, Uganda has made significant progress in reducing poverty and sustaining high economic growth. However, Uganda still faces considerable challenges that include poor infrastructure, weak public service delivery, low levels of human capital, and underdeveloped institutions. This note analyzes jobs-related projects in Uganda to identify focus areas and gaps in the portfolio in relation to country priorities mentioned in the World Bank’s country policy framework (CPF). The objective of this exercise is to understand how well the jobs agenda is being implemented through lending operations and the types of targeted jobs outcomes. This note seeks to influence future investments and analytical work in the country and provide a baseline for further analysis on jobs in the World Bank and other donors’ portfolios.

As we are approaching the year 2020, we would like to use this opportunity to reflect on arguably the second “hottest” issue of 2019, after climate change, “Migration”. In the World Bank Group, 2019 was marked by two important milestones: first, the presentation and publication of a paper to the Board on how economic migration could be leveraged for development, and second, the publication of new data on remittances showing that these flows to low and middle-income countries, at $551 million, not only exceeded official aid, they were also on track to exceed foreign direct investment flows...

This month we’re highlighting recent reports and articles on Jobs and Economic Transformation (JET), a truly cross-cutting topic. For more, better jobs we need economic transformation and vice versa. This means moving workers from lower to higher-productivity activities, within and across sectors and firms, from rural to urban areas, and from self- to wage-employment. This challenge goes to the heart of what development is about, as highlighted in this month’s featured World Bank Development Committee’s report on JET and related papers. Another recent publication, the WDR 2020 on trade for development, shows how global value chains can improve job outcomes and spur structural transformation. In this context, the WDR 2020 underlines the importance of well-designed labor and business regulations. We agree and also feature the new Doing Business report 2020 on regulatory reforms. Furthermore, for the JET agenda to succeed and value chains to upgrade, we need more investments into human capital, so do not miss the update to the Human Capital Project as it moves into 2020.

This report provides a detailed diagnostic of the Jordanian labor market. It finds that labor market outcomes are worsening in Jordan. It has one of the lowest levels of labor force participation in the world, and only one out of every three working-age Jordanians has a job. Low rates of firm entry and exit suggest that the process of creative destruction is limited. Most private sector firms are either small – and stay small or large and old. The share of employment in small firm -which tend to be less productive- is growing. Employment is increasingly informal, less productive. High levels of informality drive down overall levels of labor productivity and suggests that important distortions affect the allocation of resources in the economy. At the same time, a large inflow of Syrian refugees and economic migrants makes the need for job creation even more urgent.

We are relaunching Knowledg4Jobs as a partnership between the Jobs Group and the Labor & Skills Solutions Group in Social Protection & Jobs! Each month we will feature interesting articles that pique our interest on jobs, labor markets and migration.

In this edition, we focus on how to prepare workers for change. Technological progress, demographic changes, climate change and global integration are reshaping the world of work. In this process, a key policy challenge is to ensure that all workers are in a good position to take advantage of an expanded set of opportunities. As our featured publications show, this is not only about skills but also about ensuring that investments lead to new job opportunities accessible to the poor and vulnerable and that everyone has access to the risk management tools necessary to successfully navigate labor market transitions.

The Global Jobs Indicators Database (JoIn) presents - for 150 countries- more than 60 of the standardized labor supply indicators which are most commonly used in country Jobs Diagnostics. These cover socio-demographics, labor force status and employment type, employment composition by sector and occupation, education level completed, hours worked, and earnings. The database was compiled from national surveys and subnational microdata which was first harmonized for the Bank-wide I2D2 database, then quality checked by the Jobs Group. Jobs Indicators are disaggregated by urban/rural; male/female; and youth/adults and are presented for all years for which household surveys are available in the I2D2 database.

Supporting jobs for youth in Niger means addressing difficult questions of the right level of ambition, of reaching the necessary scale, and of trade-offs with funding for poverty reduction. Jobs policy for youth in Niger faces a difficult balancing act. It must be grounded in the reality that given the very modest starting point, economic opportunities for most Nigeriens are likely to remain limited in the medium term. At the same time, jobs policy needs to contend with the fact that young Nigeriens aspire for a different economic life than that lived by their elders. The challenge is thus to determine what kind of support is realistically feasible and can provide a good-enough perspective for young Nigeriens. Secondly, policy must ask whether the actions envisaged can make a real difference at scale, given the very big needs for better jobs. Finally, in an environment where poverty remains pervasive, it is important to acknowledge that providing jobs support specifically for youth may mean forgoing other investments that may be more efficient in reducing poverty. To make informed choices on these questions, policy makers may need to understand clearly the effectiveness of different jobs support modalities, their appropriateness in addressing Niger`s challenges, and their cost efficiency. This study seeks to provide such an assessment. The purpose of this study is to review the effectiveness of projects that supported jobs for youth in Niger over the years 2007-2018.

With an estimated 724 million extreme poor people living in developing countries, and the world’s
demographics bifurcating into an older north and a younger south, there are substantial economic incentives and benefits for people to migrate. There are also important market and regulatory failures that constrain mobility and reduce the net benefits of migration. This paper reviews the recent literature and proposes a conceptual framework to better integrate and coordinate policies for addressing the different market and regulatory failures. The paper advances five types of interventions in need of particular attention in terms of design, implementation and evaluation; namely, 1) active labor market programs that serve local, regional and foreign markets; 2) remittances and investment subsidies to promote job creation and labor productivity growth; 3) social insurance programs that cover all jobs and facilitate labor mobility; 4) labor taxes to internalize the social costs of migration in receiving regions; and 5) more flexible, private sector driven schemes to regulate the flow of migrants and minimize irregular migration.

Mozambique has a low average yield of raw cashew nut (RCN) of 3 kg/tree. The latest census of agriculture in 2015 estimated that 1.33 million households owned cashew trees. Another 30,000 households were involved post-harvest. One-half of RCN production sold was processed in 2015, up from 1/3 in 2008. A large share of cashew exports are raw nuts, mostly “informal” (no tax). In 2017, national production was only two-thirds of 1972, when Mozambique was the world leader in cashew exports. An export tax was imposed on RCN exports in 2001, currently 18 percent of the F.O.B. price, to promote domestic processing. Key challenges for production include replacing aging trees with improved root-stock and stepped-up anti-fungal spraying. Industrial processing now comprises 15 factories employing 17,000 workers, 57 percent of whom are women. Main recommendations are: a multi-stakeholder Platform to periodically review cashew developments; smallholder participation in producer organizations; privatization of seedlings distribution and tree-spraying without subsidies; public and private commercial infrastructure (warehouses, transportation, access roads); accessible international market and technical information; using cashew shells to generate energy; using cashew apple to produce packaged fermented beverages; and a cross-Ministry push on food safety protocols for cashew.

This paper examines the effects of a government-sponsored apprenticeship training program designed to address high levels of youth unemployment in Ghana. The study exploits randomized access to the program to examine the short-run effects of apprenticeship training on labor market outcomes. The results show that apprenticeships shift youth out of wage work and into self-employment. However, the loss of wage income is not offset by increases in self-employment profits in the short run. In addition, the study uses the randomized match between apprentices and training providers to examine the causal effect of characteristics of trainers on outcomes for apprentices. Participants who trained with the most experienced trainers or the most profitable ones had higher earnings. These increases more than offset the program's negative treatment effect on earnings. This suggests that training programs can be made more effective through better recruitment of trainers.

South Asia’s economy has grown rapidly, and the region has made a significant reduction in poverty. However, the available jobs for the growing working population remain limited. Policy makers are contending with lingering concerns about jobless growth and poor job quality. Exports to Jobs: Boosting the Gains from Trade in South Asia posits that exports, could bring higher wages and better jobs to South Asia. We use a new methodology to estimate the potential impact from higher South Asian exports per worker on wages and employment. We find that increasing exports per worker would result in higher wages, mostly for the better-off groups—like the better-educated workers, men, and the more-experienced workers—although the less-skilled and rural workers would benefit from new job opportunities outside of the informal sector. Our report shows that to spread the benefits from higher exports widely, policies are needed to raise skills and get certain groups, such as women and youth, into more and better jobs. Complementary measures include removing trade barriers and investing in infrastructure, and increasing the ability of workers to find higher-paying jobs. Together, these actions would help South Asian countries spread the gains from being closely integrated into the global economy through exporting. This book, which is the product of a partnership between the International Labour Organization and the World Bank, contributes to our understanding of the impact that growing exports can have on increasing well-being, and it bridges the gap between academic research and policy making.

Integrating an impact evaluation into the Zambia Agribusiness and Trade Project(P156492), this study will assess the role of technical support and financing on the emergence and sustainability of trading relationships in agriculture. The interventions target two points of the value chain for agricultural outputs: that of farmer groups with buyers and that of small agribusinesses with their buyers. Consequently, in practice, this proposal is putting forward two separate, but related impact evaluations – one based on farmer groups and the other on agribusiness SMEs. In both settings, the evaluations will seek to (a) identify the market frictions that prevent the formation of productive trading relationships between buyers and sellers/producers, and (b) test approaches to targeting these frictions to improve contracting and welfare for both parties. Using a Randomized Control Trial, the impact evaluations aim to contribute rigorous evidence to a literature-base that is relatively underserved, and understand the effect of releasing coordination frictions and liquidity constraints in the creation of productivity-enhancing relationships.

Mozambique had 60,000 hectares of large-scale commercial planted forest in 2009, supporting about 3,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. Very little growth in large-scale commercial planted area has occurred since 2009, unlike what would be required to meet predictions at the time of 1,000,000 hectares planted by 2030. Labor costs are three to four times lower in plantation forestry in Mozambique than in Brazil, South Africa, and Uganda. Yet, unit costs per cubic meter of eucalyptus timber produced in Mozambique are higher due to lower tree volume growth rates, skills gaps, and employee absenteeism up to 50 percent. Yet, deforestation and imports of high-end wood products are rekindling interest in plantation forestry, with recognition of the need for community involvement. Integration of
smaller-scale forestry into community land use patterns is taking off. Recommended actions include: matching grants financed by public resources to leverage private investment and contract farming through community woodlots; empowerment of an independent third-party organization funded by companies to analyze, broker and communicate amongst relevant stakeholders; private sector mobile agroforestry schools for training in remote areas; community land-use plans developed with local stakeholders, delimiting different kinds of land and different rights; and strengthening of community-based organizations that deal with land.

Cassava is the principal starch in Mozambique, at 30 percent of calories. It can be stored unharvested up to 30 months, but fresh cassava lasts only 3 days once harvested. Most processing in Mozambique is artisanal, to eliminate cyanogenic glycosides in the 90 percent of production from pest resistant bitter varieties. Only 6 percent of production in 2011 was used commercially for non-food, two-thirds for feed and one-third for starch. Low levels of productivity for cassava compared to elsewhere and poor transportation ar the main barriers to the development of a processing industry. Unit costs of production range from USD 0.09 to USD 0.30 U.S. cents per kg. Producers would need to achieve 15 tons/hectare to be commercially viable, compared to average yields between 5 and 9 tons/hectare in Mozambique. Actions recommended include: adoption of a "Master Plan "; time-limited subsidies for industrial Hig Quality Cassava Flour, ethanol, and starch; a network of service providers to operate in smallholder areas to deliver improved inputs and extension; promotion of farmers’ associations for better access to service providers; research on pest control in sweet varieties; greater availability of global market intelligence; capacity-building for processing; and introduction of legal norms to prevent processors from polluting.

This paper examines the quality of management practices in Turkey and its relation to other firm-level characteristics such as firm performance, competition, and type of ownership. A key finding is that management quality is positively correlated with
productivity and quality of jobs across subsectors of manufacturing. But the average score of management quality in Turkey is relatively low compared to peer countries. Factors such as firm size, level of human capital of the workforce, export intensity of the firm, openness to international markets, level of hierarchy in decision making, and degree of managerial autonomy are found to be important determinants of managerial practices in Turkey. Thus, improvements in these dimensions, through relevant policies and incentives, can have a positive effect on the quality of firm management going forward. Such improvements in management practices—particularly in the two dimensions where Turkey scores lowest: monitoring and targeting—can have positive effects on firm performance and lead to increases in the creation of quality jobs.

This document outlines the pre-analysis plan to study the effects of the Urban Productive Sa- fety Net Program (UPSNP) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, one year after it started. The evaluation takes advantage of the randomization of the program at the woreda level during its first year of implementation. Of the 90 eligible woredas in Addis, 35 were randomly assigned to start implementation right away (in year 1) while the remaining 55 were assigned to start imple- mentation approximately 12 months later (in year 2). We look at household and individual effects of the program on direct recipients of both of the two main intervention arms of the program, as well as the effect of the program on non-beneficiary households living in urban neighbourhoods where the program is rolled out.

This Note is a stocktake summarizing evidence on “what works” in youth employment programs on both the supply and demand side. Employment outcomes refer both to direct and indirect job creation, including through firm start-up, as well as improvements in the quality of jobs as manifested in higher earnings as self-employment or increases in household income. This paper is based on an extensive desk literature review and analyzes the major meta-analysis and literature reviews on both the labor demand side and labor supply side.The supply side has a large body of evidence and evaluations of the whole Active Labor Market Policies (ALMPs) package as a whole. Kluve et al. (2016) and McKenzie, D. (2017) have a rigorous methodology and provide wide analysis and recommendations of the major studies on the supply side and provide the basis for that section.

Iraq needs a strategy to make rapid progress in tackling its profound jobs challenges. Iraq is facing a jobs crisis of unprecedented proportions. It could foment a resurgence in violence unless the Government of Iraq makes credible and swift progress in job creation and reconstruction. To shape a longer-term vision, Iraq can look beyond its recent history of conflict, and to its past as a diversified economy & home of an educated workforce.However, in the short-term, neither private/ public sector hiring can create jobs at the desired scale without significant new policy action. The first-best solution for large-scale private sector job creation hinges on structural reforms that must begin now, but are achievable only in the medium to longer term. This paper provides a primer on options to deliver large-scale job creation in the short-term, based on investments in construction, agriculture and agribusiness, small & medium enterprises, and vocational skills. Its aim is to outline workable steps for progress in a jobs crisis in a post-conflict situation. Because these steps focus on rapid impact at scale, rather than structural reform, they are less-than-ideal or second-best. A similar logic applies to financing options. Financing needs for jobs are large, and while business climate reforms are under way,first-best private investment in jobs will remain limited.Yet, the recent oil price hike offers the Government of Iraq a uniquely timely opportunity to make an investment in jobs.

There is a growing body of literature exploring the skill content of jobs. This article contributes to this research by using data on the task content of occupations from developing countries, instead of US data as most existing studies do. It finds that US-based indexes do not provide a fair approximation of the levels, changes and drivers of the routine cognitive and non-routine manual skill content of jobs in developing countries.

Informality is ubiquitous in the labor markets of developing countries, and requiring that firms formally register, pay taxes, and provide employee benefits stipulated in labor regulations to reduce such informality is challenging. However, a matched survey on employer-employee preferences suggests that mutually beneficial job benefits exist, and that encouraging their adoption might be feasible. Carefully designed discrete choice experiments on combinations of benefits related to compensation, leave and termination policies, working conditions, and accident insurance, along with incentives for employers, reveal the relative values that workers and employers attach to each benefit. The results show that workers tend to value advance notice for job termination and accident insurance, and that employers are not averse to providing these benefits. In contrast, workers find long working hours without overtime compensation to be highly undesirable, whereas many employers are generally unwilling to provide shorter hours or overtime pay unless they face the threat of fines or are offered substantial incentives for doing so. Our findings therefore suggest that encouraging the provision of termination notice and accident insurance may be relatively easy, but that increasing compliance with legal limits on working hours and overtime compensation is likely to require increased enforcement or substantial incentives.

Over the recent past, Burkina Faso has registered solid economic growth and poverty levels have been lowered, suggesting that growth has been pro-poor. Yet, poverty remains widespread despite high levels of labor market participation and employment. In practice, life for many in the country remains a struggle, even when compared to equally challenging conditions elsewhere in the region. The overview report on the "Jobs Diagnostic: Burkina Faso" provides a multi-sectoral analysis of the country's jobs challenges by looking at macro-economic conditions and trends, hindrances to labor demand, issues affecting jobs outcomes in agriculture and determinants of jobs outcomes in general. The report draws on recent household and enterprise surveys and provides regional comparisons that place the challenges in Burkina Faso in a wider context. It closes with preliminary policy recommendations for a future jobs strategy.

Paraguay has achieved positive employment outcomes over the last decade, reflecting more jobs and improved average job quality, which together contributed to significant poverty reduction. Firms played a major role in creating these jobs, especially formal jobs. It is important to understand how firm performance has translated into employment, the nature of the resulting jobs, and the factors affecting these outcomes. Using firm-level datasets, this analysis explores the characteristics of firms that are growing or stagnating; the sectors into which new firms are entering or incumbent firms are expanding their operations; and the factors that may be helping or hindering firms to enter, expand, or increase their productivity. High rates of informality and evasion create a challenging private sector environment for firms, but even among formal firms, the prevailing structure is characterized by micro-firms that lack scale economies, are concentrated in non-tradables, have generally low productivity levels, and rely on unskilled employment. The analysis also finds a pervasive duality between micro-sized low-productivity firms on one end, and a small number of highly productive firms in concentrated markets on the other end. These results imply some important challenges for the continued development of a healthy, dynamic and inclusive private sector.

The paper is structured in six further sections following this introduction. Section two develops a conceptual framework, and reviews the literature on the relationship between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Section three outlines the empirical framework and data used in the analysis. Section four presents results on the relationship between overall trade integration (through exports) and labor market outcomes. Section five then focuses specifically on GVC trade, and assesses the relationship between labor market outcomes and GVC integration as a buyer and as a seller. Section six tests if select policy indicators mediate these relationships between trade integration and labor market outcomes. Finally, section seven concludes, with a summary of results and areas for future research.

Following a couple of decades of offshoring, the fear today is of reshoring. Using administrative data on Mexican exports by municipality, sector and destination from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates how local labor markets in Mexico that are more exposed to automation in the U.S. through trade fared in exports and employment outcomes. The results show that an increase of one robot per thousand workers in the U.S. — about twice the increase observed between 2004-2014 — lowers growth in exports per worker from Mexico to the U.S. by 6.7 percent. Higher exposure to U.S. automation did not affect wage employment, nor manufacturing wage employment overall.

This paper uses a randomized information intervention to shed light on whether poor understanding of social insurance, both the process of enrolling and costs and benefits, drives the relatively low rates of participation in urban health insurance and pension programs among China's rural-urban migrants. Among workers without a contract, the information intervention has a strong positive effect on participation in health insurance and, among younger age groups, in pension programs. Migrants are responsive to price: in cities where the premiums are low relative to earnings, information induces health insurance participation, while declines are observed in cities with high relative premiums.

This paper reviews and critically evaluates existing evidence on female entrepreneurial activity. First, we identify how female-run businesses are different, by examining both economic and non-economic outcomes which are frequently overlooked. Second, we offer a comprehensive discussion of drivers to explain why these differences. We group these drivers in four categories: (i)preferences, (ii) endowments, (iv) external constraints, and(iv) internal constraints. Third, we review evidence on the types of policies that have been effective or have potential to address the different drivers. Finally, we offer a discussion of the gaps in the literature and identify areas for future research.

Digital technologies affect employment through complex channels: automation, connectivity, and innovation. Labor-saving technologies coupled with reshoring may disrupt labor markets in developing countries and result in job losses. Yet, technological change drives productivity gains in both white-collar and blue-collar jobs either through ICT uptake or modern mechanical technologies. The ‘gig economy’ changes the traditional employer-employee relationship as it introduces new types of work. Digital platforms increase flexibility and labor market transparency, but delink workers from employers and from social benefits and protections making them more vulnerable. Policymakers in rich and poor countries alike should rethink social protection mechanisms. Technology diffusion has created divided worlds varying by region and income level. Job automation is likely to have a greater impact on less skilled workers than those with a university education (40 percent versus 5 percent in OECD countries). Moving towards a digital economy will reward those with access to broadband connectivity, strong institutions, and digital literacy. Future workers must acquire basic IT skills together with socio emotional skills that adapt to a lifelong learning environment in a changing jobs landscape. Technology can also increase labor market access for women and persons with disabilities, given the right ‘analog’ complements are in place. Technological change will affect the number, quality, and distribution of jobs across the world. In developing countries, the future workforce should be ready to embrace technology, digital literacy, and connectedness—bringing everyone closer to the technological frontier.

Labor Market Observatories (LMOs) are institutions that help guide job seekers and students, intermediaries, policymakers, training institutions, as well as investors and employers with labor market trends and guidance to build better careers.

Today, more than half of Haiti's population calls cities and towns their home, in a major shift from the 1950s when around 90 percent of Haitians lived in the countryside. Urbanization is usually paired with economic growth, increased productivity, and higher living standards, but in Haiti it has taken a different course. Potential benefits have been overshadowed by immense challenges, all of which require immediate action. To better understand the factors that constrain the sustainable and inclusive development of Haitian cities, this Urbanization Review organizes the challenges along three dimensions of urban development namely planning, connecting, and financing. Planning reviews the challenges in supporting resilient growth to create economically vibrant, environmentally sustainable, and livable cities. Connecting focuses on the obstacles of physically linking people to jobs and businesses to markets, while financing focuses on identifying the key capital, governance, and institutional constraints that are hurdles to successful planning and connecting.

One-fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by fragility, violence and conflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However, little is known about how firms respond to local changes in security, partly because of the difficulty of measuring firm activity in these settings. This paper presents a novel methodology for observing private sector activity using mobile phone metadata. Using Afghanistan as the empirical setting, the analysis combines mobile phone data from over 2,300 firms with data from several other sources to develop and validate measures of firm location, size, and economic activity.

This paper identifies the factors that affect the location of firms in Tanzania. Using a binomial econometric strategy to address data gaps in firm location at the ward level, the paper groups factors into firm characteristics, market features, and two types of agglomeration economies that capture economies of scale external to the firm. The benefits of agglomeration may stem from specialization within and among firms (referred to in the literature as localization economies) or from diversification across firms (referred to as urbanization economies). The distinction between these two lies at the heart of the discussion on firm location. Regression results indicate that, of the various factors tested, the most important determinant driving firm location is the jobs diversification spect of urban economies. Other contributing factors are localization economies (jobs specialization), competitive markets, and market access. Based on these findings, policymakers seeking to foster agglomeration could orient policies toward promoting firm entry within cities, complementary investments in urban infrastructure and the urban pool of labor, regulations that support competition, and improvements in market access for large cities. But localization economies are also significant in Tanzania, and could be encouraged through investment in smaller population centers and increasing competition and market access beyond the primary urban centers of Dar-es-Salaam and Arusha.

Value chain (VC) studies allow us to provide an in-depth understanding of the interrelationships among firms that operate in a supply network and of the factors that determine the structure, dynamism, and competitiveness of these chains. Although most approaches to value chain analysis provide a limited focus on the nature and structure of jobs in these chains, the Jobs in Value Chains survey toolkit discussed in this guide will help illuminate the number of jobs, where they are located in the VC, and the extent and nature of relationships among actors in a VC.

This report focuses on the challenge of Mozambique’s jobs transition: how to accelerate the shift into higher value-added activities and better livelihoods. As Mozambique enters the next phase of the demographic transition, the working-age population (WAP) is growing rapidly.

Between 2007 and 2017, 99 countries initiated reforms in labor regulations that affected World Bank Doing Business labor indicators. The most common topics for reforms are (i) procedural requirements in case of contract termination, and changes in notification arrangements; (ii) fixed-term contracts; (iii) severance payments; (iv) annual leave arrangements, and (v) working time arrangements. Approximately 48 percent of the reforms made labor legislation more flexible, and 52 percent enforced more worker protection. The objective of this study is to document these reforms, and identify key benchmarks in labor legislation by country groups.

The World Bank in collaboration with the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) conducted an assessment on the constraints and opportunities faced by non-farm household enterprise owners when starting and growing a business. The report highlights the findings from two applied methodologies namely a qualitative toolkit and a quantitative analysis.

Over the past decade, Jordan’s garment manufacturing industry has maintained an impressive rate of growth. This expansion brings with it the immense potential to create decent job opportunities, including for Jordanian women. The government’s “satellite” garment unit model has targeted pockets of rural poverty in Jordan and helped bring over 4,700 Jordanian women into the formal labour market. However, most satellite units are not profitable. In this context, to continue providing decent job opportunities across Jordan while being financially viable, satellite garment factories must be transformed into sustainable businesses.

With support from the World Bank Group and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Better Work Jordan implemented an 18-month project, “Enhancing the Productivity in Jordan’s Satellite Garment Factories”. Given the increasing number of satellite units and the model’s potential to provide sustainable work opportunities to Jordanians, the project sought to understand the challenges faced by these factories and to explore ways to enhance productivity through improvements in processes and better working conditions.

This report presents the background of the emergence of the satellite unit model in Jordan and its current status. The report draws observations on challenges and best practices documented throughout the course of the project and presents recommendations to help advance the model. Greater coordinated efforts and increased public-private dialogue could help achieve the core mission of the satellite unit model – to provide decent work opportunities for Jordanian women in rural areas.

Too often, academics and policy makers interpret formality as a binary choice and formalization as an irreversible process. Yet, formalization has many facets and shades on the business and labor fronts, and firms may not be able or willing to formalize all at once. This paper explores the joint process of business and labor formalization, using a unique panel data set of Peruvian micro enterprises. The paper finds that business formality does not imply labor formality, and vice versa. Further, there is significant churning in and out of different dimensions of formality within a relatively short period. Using an instrumental variable approach, the paper infers that business formalization affects labor formalization but not the other way around, and that enforcement is a key driver of formalization. Overall, the analysis shows that formalization is a gradual and reversible process, with small entrepreneurs weighing their possibilities in each pathway to business (often) or labor (less often) formalization, but rarely both at the same time.

This report documents cross-country findings from analysis conducted by World Bank staff working on Jobs Diagnostics. It identifies some key insights for policy makers to take into account when designing policies and programs for inclusive growth. The findings are drawn from three different sources. The macroeconomic section analyzes data for over 16,000 overlapping episodes of economic growth in 125 countries. The labor supply section analyzes labor data from the latest household surveys in 150 countries around the world. The firm-level analysis draws on business data from countries for which—at the time of writing—the World Bank had conducted a Jobs Diagnostic. The report identifies jobs-related transitions as the pathways people follow to better jobs —workers increase their hours worked, become more productive in their work, move between locations, change sectors and occupations, and shift from self- to waged employment and from less to more successful firms.

This paper uses Labor Force Survey data to assess key aspects of the labor market in Vietnam over 2007-14. The analysis finds large growth in wage employment in the foreign-owned and domestic private sectors. However, the state sector remains a major employer, particularly for workers with higher education, employing 70 percent of wage workers with a university degree. Low-skilled occupations dominate the stock of existing jobs, but the top growing occupations overwhelmingly belong to high-skilled categories. The paper notes that the high unemployment rates of recent university graduates, which have raised concern about a mismatch between skills and employer needs, reflect the transition to the job market and diminish sharply as graduates age. The returns to education in the private sector are highest for university graduates. Finally, women and ethnic minorities are less likely to work in wage jobs, and those that do earn lower wages, although the wage gap for women has declined over time.

The project consists of a large-scale randomized controlled trial to analyze the impact of a pilot intervention aimed at supporting job seekers in their pursuit of successful labor market (re)integration. The intervention, implemented in Turkey, will be delivered as part of the existing employment support services of the national public employment agency. It will focus newly registered jobseekers, or those who are registering again after a work spell. In particular, job seekers will be provided with information to influence their employment expectations as well as evidence-based tools to inform and set job search goals and with practical strategies to persevere and sustain the motivation to overcome obstacles and setbacks. We expect this intervention to increase job search intensity, take-up of ALMP services and, as a consequence, the probability of employment.

Economic growth depends on skills being put to productive use. In recent years, research on labor outcomes and education shows that there is a substantial mismatch between the supply and demand for skills around the world (Cappelli, 2014: McIntosh and Vignoles, 2001). This mismatch affects more than just wages or individual job satisfaction.

This paper finds that skills constraints – related to a broad set of skills - have an effect on job creation and labor market outcomes in Kenya. Most seriously, skills shortages negatively impact recruitment and have been identified across a broad set of socioemotional skills and cognitive skills that are necessary for any occupation.

This descriptive study investigates internal and external labor migration by Nepalese youth. External labor migration is separated into the flow to India, which is unregulated, and the flow to other countries, which typically takes the form of temporary contract migration to countries with bilateral labor agreements with Nepal (referred to in Nepal as foreign employment). The study finds that labor migration by Nepalese youth is extensive and male dominated. The regions with the highest rates of labor outmigration are rural Terai, rural Hills, and Mountains. Female labor migration is mostly within Nepal, whereas male labor migration is mostly to other countries. Most labor migrants are wageemployed, and engage in services. Labor migration is positively associated with education attainment for women, but negatively associated for men. Labor migration is also positively associated with household economic status for women. Just four destination countries (Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) account for the majority of foreign employment workers. Nepal’s foreign employment system faces several challenges, including implementation shortcomings in the government’s institutional arrangements for workers, and the substantial market power of private recruitment agencies over workers. Male foreign employment outflow appears to be mainly associated with economic and other forces in the top destination countries. Male youth labor migration has negative effects on the likelihood of employment and hours worked for female and male youth household members who remain at home, although the effects are not consistently significant.

This Note systematizes the economic evaluation of Jobs Investment Projects. It explains the limitations of past approaches that have regarded jobs only as a by-product of growth. It focuses on market failures that create a gap between the social and private return on investments and reduce the number of good jobs below the socially optimal level. Two of these market failures are: labor externalities arising from the divergence between the market price and opportunity cost of labor; and social jobs externalities linked to improved jobs outcomes for groups such as youth, women, and the extreme poor. These externalities can amplify other market failures such as learning spillovers and coordination failures. The analysis is integrated within a Cost-Benefit framework, to facilitate decision making around jobs investment programs. The Note discusses applications to different sorts of projects: those that focus on improving the labor supply and labor market matches; those that focus on strengthening firms' demand for labor; and integrated projects, that include both types of interventions.

Should public investment be targeted to big cities or to small towns, if the objective is to minimize national poverty? To answer this policy question, this paper extends the basic Todaro-type model of rural-urban migration to the case of migration from rural areas to two potential destinations, secondary town and big city. The analysis first derives the labor income, migration cost and poverty line conditions under which a poverty gradient from rural to town to city will exist as an equilibrium phenomenon. Then sufficient statistics are developed for the policy decisions based on these parameters. The empirical remit of the model is illustrated with long-running panel data from Kagera, Tanzania. Further, the paper shows that the structure of the sufficient statistics is maintained in the case where the model is generalized to introduce heterogeneous workers and jobs.

One of the world’s most youthful countries, Zambia’s economy has been booming since the early 2000s on the back of record high copper prices and private sector investment response to the better business environment. But poverty rose from 2010 to 2015 and remains very high in rural areas. Economic transformation is underway with workers moving to off-farm jobs, but these are heavily skewed in the capital Lusaka and in the Copperbelt, are mostly informal, and aside from jobs on the commercial farms, good waged are inaccessible to large groups of rural Zambians, especially women and youth. As labor has started moving out of agriculture into industry and especially into services, productivity and hours worked have fallen on average, especially for young people and those with low levels of education. Better educated people in the upper income quintiles are gaining most from rapid growth in Zambia, with the public sector hiring a substantial share of better educated Zambians and paying them more for a given level of education. The majority of Zambia’s rising number of poor people are stuck in low productivity agriculture. This report identifies the main jobs challenges facing Zambia and recommends policies and programs that could reduce poverty and make growth more inclusive by generating more and better jobs for Zambia.

Kazakhstan is a unique country in a unique part of the world. Its uniqueness is important, as it shapes the opportunities and economic realities faced by the country, as well as the political responses to those challenges. Since independence in 1992, Kazakhstan has made rapid progress in transitioning to an upper-middle income country. This sustained growth has enabled Kazakhstan to achieve rapid reductions in poverty. This note draws on a large body of recent and ongoing analyses carried out by the World Bank, the Government of Kazakhstan, and other partners. The strategy, in turn, aims to enhance the impact of the government’s policies, programs, and projects on the availability, diversity, quality, and sustainability of jobs. The remainder of the note is structured as follows: Section 2 provides a detailed review of the state of jobs in Kazakhstan, reviewing recent progress and analyzing the nature of the challenges around self-employment; Section 3 introduces a framework for thinking about a jobs strategy in Kazakhstan, and provides an initial overview of the current situation and government response along each of its dimensions, as well as some potential policies for consideration; and Section 4 concludes.

This note presents a detailed analysis of jobs in Kazakhstan at the macro and individual levels, including regional and socio-economic disparities. At the macro level, it includes a diagnostic of the links between economic growth, jobs, and productivity across different economic sectors. At the individual level, the analysis focuses on labor market outcomes of women and men, young and adult workers, residents of urban and rural areas, and people in the bottom 40 percent of the consumption distribution. It also presents a detailed analysis of determinants of employment and wages. The rest of the note is organized as follows: section two discusses the relationship between economic growth, jobs, and productivity across different economic sectors. Section three discusses demographic trends and overall labor market outcomes. Section four focuses on assessing spatial and sectoral differences in access to jobs, including for those in the bottom 40 percent. Section five concludes with a discussion of challenges and broad policy implications.

Tanzania has just entered a phase of growing dependency rates that will put pressure on job creation so that the larger number of dependents do not fall into poverty. However, the new millions of jobs that will be needed in the next decade is only part of the challenge. It is important to create better jobs. An economy that produces plenty of good jobs is the most direct way to continue the trajectory toward lower poverty rates.

Using online job portal data and probabilistic regression estimations, the paper investigates the explicit gender bias and salary gap in the Indian job market, reflected in more than 800,000 job recruitment advertisements. Exploring formal and informal sector occupations, the study finds high existence of employers' gender bias in hiring. Explicit gender preferences are highly job specific, and it is common to mention the preferred gender in job ads, which, in general, favor men over women. Although ads for professional occupations exhibit less explicit gender bias, they are not gender neutral.

This paper examines the impact of noncognitive (socio-emotional) skills on job market outcomes, using a randomized control trial implemented in an online job portal in India. Job seekers who registered in the portal were asked to take a Big-Five type personality test and, for a random subsample of the test takers, the results were displayed to potential employers. The outcomes are measured by whether a potential employer shortlisted a job seeker by opening (unlocking) his/her application and background information. The results show that the treatment group for whom test results were shown generally enjoyed a higher probability of unlock.

This guide aims to provide general guidance to project managers and project teams on the design and implementation of integrated, cross-sectoral youth employment programs.The aim of the integrated programs described in this guide is to bring together supply- and demand side interventions to simultaneously address three interrelated objectives:Promote job creation for the target population; Improve the quality of jobs young people already have, many of which are in the informal sector; and Help prepare young job seekers for jobs or to move from low- to higher-quality jobs.

Since the Syrian war begun in 2011, Turkey has received over 2.8 million refugees, becoming the largest host country in the world. We build and es- timate/calibrate a model using detailed micro data from Turkey to quantify the labor market effects of this sudden and massive migration wave. Low and high skill workers self-select into different regions based on idiosyncratic preferences and mobility costs, while firms within each region can exploit two margins of informality: to register or not their business, the extensive margin; and whether to hire their workers formally or not, the intensive margin.

This paper develops the concept of ‘action space’ as the range of possible destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set of possible livelihoods at destination. It shows how this space expands and contracts over time through ‘cumulative causation.’ Such a dynamic framework allows for appreciating the role of secondary towns in rural-urban migration and poverty reduction. Secondary towns occupy a unique middle ground between semi-subsistence agriculture and the capitalistic city, between what is close by and familiar and what is much further away and unknown. By opening the horizons of the (poorer) rural population and facilitating navigation of the nonfarm economy, secondary towns allow a broader base of the poor population to become physically, economically, and socially mobile. Secondary towns therefore have great potential as vehicles for inclusive growth and poverty reduction in urbanizing developing countries. These are the insights emerging from the in-depth life history accounts of 75 purposively selected rural-urban migrants from rural Kagera, in Tanzania.

The objective of this assignment is to conduct a quantitative and qualitative Jobs in Value Chain Survey in a rigorous manner in Iringa and Njombe regions in Tanzania, in order to extract findings that inform how to improve the competitiveness of local firms and efficiency of the tomato value chain, in a way that stimulates job creation and enhances linkages of smaller firms into the value chain.

This descriptive study investigates internal and external labor migration by Nepalese youth. External labor migration is separated into the flow to India, which is unregulated, and the flow to other countries, which typically takes the form of temporary contract migration to countries with bilateral labor agreements with Nepal (referred to in Nepal as foreign employment).

Why do some countries create more jobs than others? To consider this question, in this paper we focus on one of the most basic relationships, between growth and employment. In practice, the private sector responds very differently to growth (and decline) across countries. Understanding the patterns and drivers of private sector decisions to expand and shed jobs may be important to guide policy approaches for job creation. This paper analyzes the output-employment relationship in the context of business cycles at three levels: the macro-economy; industry (in manufacturing); and firms. The results highlight major differences in private sector job creation responsiveness to growth across stages of development and economic structures, but a critical finding is that economies (and firms) where formal sector job creation was more responsive to growth cycles generated more jobs overall. In addition, results from both the macro analysis and the sectoral analysis suggests significant complementarity between capital and labor. Finally, the findings may help to frame a broad policy agenda for job creation, including: macro-economic fundamentals, responsive labor markets, access to finance, competition, and a facilitative business regulatory environment. These are not surprising, but nevertheless frame a set of issues that could be explored in further research.

Jobs need to be at the heart of economic development policies in Zambia. Recognizing the role of jobs in making Zambia a more equal middle-income country, the Government of Zambia has prioritized job creation in its Vision 2030 and National Strategy on Job Creation and Industrialization by setting a goal to create one million jobs in key sectors over the next five years. This report has three main objectives. First, it outlines the main challenges to Zambia's jobs agenda at the macro, household, and firm levels. Second, it takes a closer look at jobs at a sectoral level, with a focus on agribusiness value chains that illustrates the potential for job creation in high-potential sectors. Lastly, it presents a set of policies that may be prioritized by policymakers as part of implementing a jobs strategy through creating more formal sector jobs, improving the quality of informal sector jobs, and connecting vulnerable population groups to jobs.

The high incidence of informality in developing countries implies that many workers are not covered against important risks, such as unemployment, illness and old-age poverty. Given that expanding the Bismarckian system to include informal workers presents many challenges, several countries implemented non-contributory social insurance programs to expand coverage. However, these contributed to labor market segmentation and are unlikely to be financially sustainable. This note reviews the economic literature dealing with the expansion of social insurance programs and summarizes the main policy insights. It draws on international evidence on social insurance system design and innovations, and the resulting impact on coverage. It also provides general design principles that can apply to unemployment benefits, health insurance, and pensions.

The high incidence of informality in developing countries acts as a drag on economic development due to the associated efficiency and equity costs and implied weak governance. Policy makers therefore want to reduce informality. This note presents guidance on policy levers to make formality more attractive and informality less attractive from the perspective of small, medium and large firms, and from the perspective of micro-entrepreneurs. It elaborates the challenges for shifting incentives in favor of being formal and employing workers on formal contracts rather than operating under the regulatory radar, and presents a range of policy options.

This paper develops a general framework to inform the design of a new generation of jobs lending operations. The paper discusses the rationale for developing jobs focused lending operations with specific targets in terms of job creation, job quality, and labor markets outcomes for vulnerable population groups. It reviews the current portfolio of jobs-flagged lending operations, discusses the limitations of existing interventions, and outlines options to optimize countries lending portfolios and develop new, integrated, jobs lending operations on the basis of jobs diagnostics and jobs strategies. The paper provides examples of innovative projects that are currently under preparation or implementation, including jobs investment projects that link supply-side and demand side interventions; jobs Program for Results (PforRs), and jobs Development Policy Lending. The final section describes the types of monitoring and evaluation systems that these new projects would require to track jobs outcomes.

Participation in a Global Value Chain (GVC) can create more jobs through a structural transformation, and potential jobs spill overs from strengthened backward and forwardlinkages. GVCs can also have a positive impact on jobs for women. Evidence shows a disproportionateshare of jobs in labor-intensive chains benefiting women.Jobs in GVCs are better jobs because of higher wages and better working conditions, as domestic firms seek to comply with global standards to participate.  However, these above mentioned labor market outcomes being achieved depend on several parameters, such as the sector of operations, level of firm operation, and existing distortions in the labor market. But evidence for GVC participation leading to better jobs is strong at the firm level, given the win-win business case through higher productivity, efficiency, and profits.The jobs outcome through GVC participation can be strengthened through focusing on GVC upgrading strategies, implementing and strengthening private standards, improving national regulations, and strengthening monitoring and evaluation of impact of GVC operations.

Fourteenth in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2017 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity: • Starting a business • Dealing with construction permits • Getting electricity • Registering property • Getting credit • Protecting minority investors • Paying taxes • Trading across borders • Enforcing contracts • Resolving insolvency. These areas are included in the distance to frontier score and ease of doing business ranking. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation, which is not included in these two measures. This year’s report introduces major improvements by expanding the paying taxes indicators to cover postfiling processes—tax audits, tax refunds and tax appeals—and presents analysis of pilot data on selling to the government which measures public procurement regulations. Also for the first time this year Doing Business collects data on Somalia. Using the data originally developed by Women, Business and the Law, this year for the first time Doing Business adds a gender component to three indicators—starting a business, registering property, and enforcing contracts—and finds that those economies which limit women’s access in these areas have fewer women working in the private sector both as employers and employees.

This report studies coding bootcamps. A new kind of rapid skills training program for the digital age. Coding bootcamps are typically short-term (three to six months), intensive and applied training courses provided by a third party that crowdsources the demand for low-skills tech talent. Coding bootcamps aim at low-entry level tech employability (for example, junior developer), providing a new tool for entry into the new world of digital jobs. This report studies the characteristics, methodologies, business models and impact of five coding bootcamps operating directly or through partners in developing countries.

This paper applies a newly-developed survey instrument to assess the structure and dynamics of jobs in the potato value chain of North Lebanon. The analysis finds that while on-farm activities represent the largest source of jobs in the value chain, most of these are low-skilled, low quality jobs taken by seasonal workers, offering limited opportunities for young Lebanese workers. The best opportunities to develop high quality jobs would come through investment in downstream processing, which would have a spillover effect also on expanding lower-skilled jobs across the chain. Taking advantage of this opportunity will require addressing significant constraints in the trade and investment climate in North Lebanon.

This report provides an assessment of constraints and opportunities for the creation of more and better quality jobs for Lebanese in the more fragile and conflict-affected regions. The geographical focus is North Lebanon, including Tripoli. This analysis, accompanied by further dialogue with the key public and private sector professionals, can serve to inform the design and development of a jobs-focused program of financial support for North Lebanon. This diagnostic and program development approach can also be replicated in other high-priority, lagging regions of the country. The diagnostic followed a three-pronged approach in order to assess the gaps that need to be overcome to respond effectively to job opportunities, foster productivity, and increase earnings: 1) an assessment of the investment climate in North Lebanon; 2) a value chain analysis (VCA) of selected sectors and the interventions required to unlock competitiveness and job creation; and 3) a review of the supply of labor and skills in the region, a stock-taking of training providers. Enterprise surveys were conducted of the key agents in two targeted value chains, as well as a household-level skills survey of the working age population in North Lebanon. Complementary semi-structured interviews and focus group meetings were also undertaken. Consultations with the Government and other stakeholders took place from May through August, 2016.

After a decade of crisis and stellar economic growth over the past five years, Côte d’Ivoire has now set its sight on becoming an emerging economy. Improving prospects for productive employment will be essential for socially sustainable growth and poverty reduction. The "Cote d'Ivoire Jobs Diagnostic: Employment, Productivity, and Inclusion for Poverty Reduction" report provides a comprehensive and multi-sectoral empirical analysis of employment challenges and opportunities to inform strategies and policy actions in Côte d’Ivoire. The report aims to expand policy discussions on employment from a focus on the number of jobs and unemployment to a broader attention on the quality, productivity and inclusiveness of jobs. It makes the case for a jobs strategy with a sharper poverty lens that would focus on raising labor productivity in agriculture and informal off-farm employment to foster structural transformation, while, in parallel, pursuing longer-term goals of expanding the thin formal sector.

Tajikistan’s economy is not creating sufficient jobs for its rapidly growing workforce, in particular its burgeoning youth population. As a result, its most valuable asset – human capital – is largely underutilized. Although remittance-driven growth since the early 2000s has led to a steep decline in the poverty rate, poverty remains high. Strong economic growth in the last decade has not resulted from structural transformation that can lead to sustained improvements in the standard of living. Jobs have been created, but these are mainly in low-productivity activities, often in the informal sector.

Sierra Leone is a relatively small economy with potential for jobs-rich growth. It is an extremely poor nation with substantial mineral, agricultural, and fishery resources. Nearly half of the working-age population engages in subsistence agriculture. Alluvial diamond mining remains the major source of hard currency earnings, accounting for nearly half of exports. However, the anticipated job-rich recovery is unlikely to be realized simply from the continued exploitation of the minerals underneath Sierra Leonean soil. This Jobs Diagnostic of Sierra Leone is a first, modest, but necessary, step to formulate that focused effort to create good jobs.

Kosovo's economy experienced strong growth over the past decade. Has growth translated into robust job creation? Do those in the bottom forty percent of the population have access to employment opportunities that can translate into sustainable shared prosperity? This report seeks to provide an integrated analysis of the demand-side and supply-side constraints to job creation and employment; and highlighting salient issues like informality and skill mismatches. Bringing together evidence from a number of data sources, including surveys of household budgets and labor force, as well as firm-level panel data and a specialized survey capturing the employers' assessments of demand and supply of skills in Kosovo, the report tries to provide evidence to argue that reforms aimed at adopting the right set of rules, and developing the right set of skills, to promote job creation, will be vital to reduce inactivity and youth disenfranchisement, and to productively employ the demographic dividend.

The economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not creating sufficient jobs for its young and rapidly growing workforce. Although the Congolese economy has experienced fast growth and poverty has declined, further reducing poverty will require more dynamic job creation and continued reductions in fertility rates. The current youth bulge and potential demographic dividend will open a unique window of opportunity but will demand faster job creation. The challenge is not limited to reducing unemployment, but includes tackling inactivity and rampant underemployment. Possible avenues to address labor market shortcomings include removing obstacles and resolving market failures for firms to grow, integrating agribusinesses into value chains, facilitating urbanization, and focusing on skills, not just schooling. At the same time, a focus on productivity growth could strengthen its link to employment creation. The report, “Democratic Republic of Congo: Jobs Diagnostic”, analyzes the main challenges—at the macro, firm, and household levels—that the country faces in creating jobs. It also outlines the main obstacles to creating more and better jobs that are more inclusive of women and youth.

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress toward poverty reduction and shared prosperity. As recently as 2000, around one in three Bangladeshis was in extreme poverty based on the $1.90 a day poverty line; today, this has fallen to below 13 percent. As in most countries, the vast majority of poverty reduction in Bangladesh over the past decade has been the result of higher labor earnings, and positive labor market developments have been at the center of such progress. Many factors—such as large-scale expansion of employment in man- ufacturing driven by the ready-made garment sector, rapid urbanization, and international labor mobility and remittances—have contributed to positive developments in the labor market, changing the lives of many.

Jobs are central to economic development. Economies grow when more people work, when jobs become more productive, and when workers move to better jobs, e.g. from low productivity farm work into jobs in the modern manufacturing or services sectors, or from remote rural areas to urban centers with greater specialization and more job opportunities. Similarly, living standards improve and poverty declines when individuals move from inactivity or unemployment into jobs, or when workers’ labor income rises.

SMEs form a dominant share of the private sector in developing countries, and account for more than 50 percent of jobs in their respective economies. Besides their positive employment effects, the growth and vibrancy of these firms is also important for broader economic growth, diversification of economic base and as a source of innovation that is exhibited by some of the start-ups. Women-owned SMEs are emerging as one of the fast growing segments within the SME sector. Youth play an important role in the creation of new firms and start up activities. Given this importance of SMEs for creation of more, better and inclusive jobs, there is significant focus on understanding the constraints to growth of this sector and implementing programs to address them in the World Bank Group and the other development institutions. Among the several constraints that they face, access to finance is usually cited as the most important and there are several instruments that can be applied to address this constraint. However, what is the evidence of impact of these programs on the employment effects? This note brings together the learnings and evidence from access to finance interventions on employment and provides some recommendations for development practitioners who seek to maximize this objective from their access to finance interventions.

Launched in October 2014, Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) is a multi-stakeholder coalition among public sector, private sector, and civil society actors that aims to provide leadership and resources for catalytic action to increase the number of young people engaged in productive work.

Digital technology is transforming the organization and location of production, and thus the futureof work. It risks widening the gap between richer and developing countries, and between the better skilled and connected and the poorer population groups within countries, who stand to bear the brunt of the adjustment. But technology also creates opportunities (leapfrogging), to generate jobs, increase earnings and be more inclusive. To take maximum advantage and counter the threat of rising global inequality, developing countries need to: (1) address bottlenecks in technology access; (2) invest in skills and (3) create an enabling environment.

This paper examines the role of multinational enterprises in sustainability reporting. The study assesses how multinational enterprise status correlates with a company's average disclosure rate and probability of reporting on economic, labor and social, environmental, and governance indicators. It uses a unique data set that offers company-level information on sustainability reporting from the Global Reporting Initiative, which covers 2,020 companies in 81 countries and 54 sustainability indicators. The summary statistics show that multinational enterprises and large domestic companies have higher average disclosure rates than small and medium-size enterprises. However, the econometric analysis suggests that multinational enterprise status does not matter for the average disclosure rate, but company size shows a strongly positive correlation. Differentiating by type of multinational enterprise reveals that the relationship becomes positive and significant for private companies. By contrast, the correlation between multinational enterprise status and the average disclosure rate does not vary by listing status, sector, region, or income level. Focusing on the relationship by development category also shows no significant correlation. Finally, accounting for the heterogeneity of the sustainability indicators, the study analyzes the relationship between multinational enterprise status and the probability of disclosure at the detailed indicator level, and confirms a significant correlation for 12 indicators.

IFC’s Work-Progression and Productivity Toolkit (WPT) is a training program for female sewing operators designed to redress the imbalance on sewing lines in Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) factories, where more than nineteen of every 20 line supervisors are men despite 80% of line workers being women. The program aims to equip women with the skills necessary to become supervisors. WPT provides female sewing operators with five days of classroom training in the technical skills required to supervise a production line as well as four days of soft skills training on leadership, communications, and how to be an effective supervisor. The trainees then apply what they have learned over eight weeks of on-the-job training alongside an experienced supervisor, to prepare them for the step up to supervisor or assistant supervisor.

The Jobs M&E Toolkit provides a package of resources for project teams and clients to support mainstreaming the Jobs Agenda in World Bank Group (WBG) lending operations. The aim is to help teams working with government counterparts with simple tools for data collection on jobs, without the burden of resource-intensive survey efforts. The toolkit contains a set of guidance on indicators for key results on jobs, data collection forms and manuals, which are tailored by beneficiary type: individuals and firms. The availability of measurable indicators should encourage a more systematic assessment of jobs outcomes. The Jobs M&E Toolkit provides resources to be used throughout the entire project cycle. It is best applied ex-ante in the design of projects and their M&E systems, so that data collection can support implementation progress and reporting from the outset. Regular monitoring and data availability will underpin project completion to assess achievements in job results ex-post. The indicators and data collection forms may also be useful for related mid-term, final or impact evaluations. The resources made available through the Jobs M&E toolkit have been developed by the WBG's Jobs Group in a consultative process. The menu of indicators and related guidance were generated through a portfolio review of WBG projects and in consultation with Task Team Leaders (TTLs) from different Global Practices (GPs). Further, data collection manuals were developed using existing resources from Labor Force Surveys, enterprise surveys and different surveys developed by the WBG. Moreover, the Jobs M&E Toolkit is currently being piloted in a number of WBG operations, with feedback from project teams helping to revise, adapt and refine the toolkit.

This report analyzes the World Bank Group (WBG) portfolio in Zambia focused on jobs, referred to as the jobs portfolio, regarding its impact on outcomes related to job creation, job quality, and job access. The review is presented within the context of Zambia’s jobs priorities: more good-quality jobs with traditionally disadvantaged groups benefitting from opportunities to work. It finds that the jobs portfolio is more focused on intermediate-level outcomes related to jobs, such as improving access to markets and firm performance. A range of intervention types contributes to job creation (66 percent of the reviewed portfolio), job quality (47 percent), and job access (51 percent). Activities focused on spatial development in value chains tend to support job creation in the formal sector. Job quality outcomes include enhanced worker productivity in informal agriculture where the majority of Zambians still work. The WBG has primarily supported job access through targeted interventions in lagging regions. Further, the combined portfolios of the WBG and let’s work partners show greater coverage of a range of job quality and job access outcomes. Areas for future support to improve job outcomes include macroeconomic and regulatory support, skills development, and targeted support for vulnerable populations and youth in particular. In addition, projects need to be reinforced by sound monitoring and evaluation (M and E) systems tracking results explicitly related to jobs.

A common concern with efforts to directly help some small businesses to grow is that their growth comes at the expense of their unassisted competitors. This study tests this possibility using a two-stage randomized experiment in Kenya. The experiment randomizes business training at the market level, and then within markets to selected businesses. Three years after training, the treated businesses are selling more, earn higher profits, and their owners have higher well-being. There is no evidence of negative spillovers on the competing businesses, and the markets as a whole appear to have grown in terms of number of customers and sales volumes. This market growth appears to come from enhanced customer service and new product introduction, generating more customers and more sales from existing customers. As a result, business growth in underdeveloped markets is possible without taking sales away from nontreated businesses.

The Union of Comoros is an insular State of 3 islands (Grande Comore or Ngazidja in local language, Anjouan or Ndzwani, and Mohéli or Mwali) with a population of 760 000. Poverty and inequality are high, with 48 percent of the population living with incomes below US$1.25 per day, and one-third of all children under 5 years of age suffered from chronic malnutrition.

Economists and other social scientists are increasingly using big data analytics to address longstanding economic questions and complement existing information sources. Big data produced by online platforms can yield a wealth of diverse, highly granular, multidimensional information with a variety of potential applications. This paper examines how online job-portal data can be used as a basis for policy-relevant research in the fields of labor economics and workforce skills development, through an empirical analysis of information generated by Babajob, an online Indian job portal.

Ukraine’s economic progress since its independence in the early 1990s has been uneven, in part due to the slow pace of reforms, unfavorable demographic factors, and low productivity. One of the key factors limiting success is the inadequacy of the skills of Ukraine’s workforce with the needs of a modern economy. While the country demonstrates a strong record of educational attainment and acquisition of foundational skills, the post-secondary education and training system fails to equip workers with the right advanced skills for labor market success. This study provides new evidence on the nature of skills valued in the labor market, reviews the institutional constraints hindering the development and use of workforce’s skills, and proposes a set of policy options.This study argues that, to improve skills formation and use, Ukraine needs to renew its public policies on post-secondary education, labor-market intermediation and information, and labor regulations. Drawing on household and firm surveys, the study finds that workers need a mix of advanced cognitive skills (like problem solving and communication), socio-emotional skills (like self-management and teamwork), and technical skills (like computer programing or sale skills) to be successful in the labor market and meet employers’ demand. These skills are not necessarily explicitly taught in traditional learning settings. Policy makers should therefore rethink the content of post-secondary education and training to focus on the development of skills for the labor market rather than only attendance. To do so, establishing steady links between education institutions and enterprises, by setting up occupation standards and adapting curricula to firm demand, is crucial. An essential instrument to identify the demand for skills and facilitate fruitful investments in skills formation is a labor market information system—which provides reliable information on labor market prospects across post-secondary education fields and institutions and job requirements and characteristics to students, their families, and jobseekers. Nonetheless, a better formation of skills would only be beneficial if most of the workforce can put them at use in jobs, promoted by better labor regulations.

Ukraine’s economic progress since its independence in the early 1990s has been uneven, in part due to the slow pace of reforms, unfavorable demographic factors, and low productivity. One of the key factors limiting success is the inadequacy of the skills of Ukraine’s workforce with the needs of a modern economy. While the country demonstrates a strong record of educational attainment and acquisition of foundational skills, the post-secondary education and training system fails to equip workers with the right advanced skills for labor market success. This study provides new evidence on the nature of skills valued in the labor market, reviews the institutional constraints hindering the development and use of workforce’s skills, and proposes a set of policy options.This study argues that, to improve skills formation and use, Ukraine needs to renew its public policies on post-secondary education, labor-market intermediation and information, and labor regulations. Drawing on household and firm surveys, the study finds that workers need a mix of advanced cognitive skills (like problem solving and communication), socio-emotional skills (like self-management and teamwork), and technical skills (like computer programing or sale skills) to be successful in the labor market and meet employers’ demand. These skills are not necessarily explicitly taught in traditional learning settings. Policy makers should therefore rethink the content of post-secondary education and training to focus on the development of skills for the labor market rather than only attendance. To do so, establishing steady links between education institutions and enterprises, by setting up occupation standards and adapting curricula to firm demand, is crucial. An essential instrument to identify the demand for skills and facilitate fruitful investments in skills formation is a labor market information system—which provides reliable information on labor market prospects across post-secondary education fields and institutions and job requirements and characteristics to students, their families, and jobseekers. Nonetheless, a better formation of skills would only be beneficial if most of the workforce can put them at use in jobs, promoted by better labor regulations.

This study analyzes from a jobs perspective two high potential value chains (VCs) in Zambia’s agribusiness sector poultry and aquaculture. With more than 50 percent of workers and over 80 percent of poor Zambians recording themselves in agriculture in the 2010 population census, raising agricultural productivity is a determinant to reduce poverty. Yet small-scale farmers (SSFs) and modern commercial operations in large farms exist in parallel, as SSFs typically use backward production systems with scant capitalization. Zambia’s challenge is to overcome the persistent disconnect between low productivity smallholder agriculture and high productivity modern agribusiness firms. Developing market linkages will enable the agribusiness sector to meet the growing urban demand for food products, while connecting more people to jobs.

This paper estimates the effects of knowledge spillovers on firms' long-term performance and workers' wages. For this purpose, we use the participation in an innovation support program as an exogenous shock to the knowledge stock of non-participant firms. We pinpoint the knowledge diffusion process by tracking the mobility of skilled workers among firms. Combining an employer-employee panel dataset that contains the whole population of firms and workers in Argentina for the period 1998-2013 with administrative data from the FONTAR program, we track the mobility of workers from participant to non-participant firms. To estimate the effect of spillovers we use the panel structure of the dataset using Lag Dependent Variable (LDV) models. We find that firms that hired skilled workers from participant firms increased employment (in addition to the workers from participant firms), the average wage they pay, their exporting probability, and the value of their exports. Consistent with the hypothesis that those effects are due to newly acquired productive knowledge, we provide evidence showing that the effects were driven by firm-level productivity improvements. Finally, we show that a wage premium is paid to skilled workers exposed to the program either by participant (to retain) or non-participant firms (to acquire) depending on the concentration level of the industry of reference. This finding further confirms the hypothesis that valuable productive knowledge is generated through the program and that this knowledge is more extensively diused in less concentrated industries.

Jobs are a high priority for development and stability in fragile and conflict-affected situations. Jobs contribute to poverty reduction, productivity and economic growth, and can promote social cohesion and reduce the risk of violence. However, the jobs environment is particularly challenging in situations affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV), with various combinations of high political, economic and social risks, weak institutional capacity, a difficult political economy, and significant constraints on financial resources to support recovery and reconstruction. Thus, fragile situations have an urgent need for well-structured assistance to address these challenges and create job opportunities. To help strengthen its engagement on jobs in FCV, the World Bank Group (WBG) has developed an integrated jobs framework. The purpose of this note is to describe the framework, which has been adapted from the WBG’s general jobs framework to incorporate the above dimensions of fragility and instability, and to outline the policy and operational implications for both the short and long run. Ultimately, the aim is to improve the support the WBG can offer to expand job opportunities across the range of FCV contexts.

This Regulatory Assessment is part of the “Accelerating the Impact of Transport Infrastructure Investments in India Through a Market-led Approach” project launched by the World Bank with a pilot collaboration with the Government of Rajasthan along the orange/mandarin and coriander value chains in Kota division. The project’s Development Corridors model is designed to leverage transport infrastructure networks in order to unlock untapped market potential in the agricultural sector and improve economic opportunities for people living in deprived rural areas in Rajasthan. While some of the gaps in the enabling environment can be directly addressed through investment, others will require policy or regulatory changes and better implementation of existing laws and regulations.

Social assistance benefits are often conditional on school attendance. However,
they will only lead to higher human-capital accumulation and increased labor market earnings through learning. We use a regression-discontinuity design to examine whether conditional cash transfers impact test scores in national exams. Identification of causal effects exploits an unexpected change in the eligibility cutoff of Brazils Bolsa Famlia that gives rise to exogenous variation in program participation. The analysis draws on detailed administrative data linking individual records from the programs payment sheets, the nations single registry of the poor and vulnerable, and educational outcomes from student censuses and test scores. The results reveal that the program leads to significant improvements in learning of Mathematics and Portuguese language. Investigating the mechanisms through which these effects take place, we find that the program causes parents to monitor student effort more frequently, and students to increase effort in school and decrease engagement in work.

This paper investigates the occupational mobility and job quality of young people in Indonesia and relates this to the concept of “scarring.” The concept of labor market scarring in this paper is the occurrence of low or zero returns to certain types of work (for example, self-employment). Scarring is expected to occur whenever an individual spends periods working in occupations in which their human capital is either stagnant or deteriorating. Fixed effects estimations using panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey reveal that a period in self-employment is associated with negative returns for youth (about 3 to 4 percent per year penalty), but not for older adults. In addition, there are clear patterns of persistence in self-employment over time with few individuals progressing from petty self-employment to businesses with permanent workers.

Getting youth into productive employment is an urgent policy issue for countries around the world. Many governments in low and middle-income countries are actively engaged in policies to help youth attain the skills they need to do well in work and in life, as well as to find suitable employment. The involvement of the private sector in youth skills development and employment is a complex issue because the nature of the firms and their motivations vary significantly.

In the past 15 years, employment, labor market participation, and wages have grown significantly in Brazil. Improved labor market outcomes have been the main drivers of reductions in poverty and inequality. But job creation is already slowing. Continued progress in employment and labor earnings will depend on the country’s ability to achieve a first critical goal: raising labor productivity. Continued improvements in the livelihoods of the poor will depend on the country’s ability to achieve a second critical goal: connecting the poor to better, more productive jobs. Sustaining Employment and Wage Gains in Brazil: A Skills and Jobs Agenda analyzes Brazil’s labor markets and identifies the key challenges involved in sustaining job creation, wage growth, and poverty reduction.

The development objective of the Productive Social Safety Net Project for Cote d’Ivoire is to provide cash transfers to poor households in selected regions and develop the foundations of a social safety net system. The project comprises of three components. The first component, cash transfer plus program targeted to poor households will support instituting the main benefits package as part of a national social safety system. It consists of following two sub-components: (i) cash transfers to targeted poor households; and (ii) accompanying measures to promote investments in human capital and livelihoods. The second component, developing the foundations of a social safety net system supports the development of key elements for the foundation of a national social safety net system using the cash transfer as basis. It consists of following four sub-components: (i) targeting system for cash transfers; (ii) social protection household registry; (iii) cash transfer payment system; and (iv) management information system and capacity-building. The third component, project management, monitoring and evaluation finances consultant services and goods to support the implementation and monitoring of project-related activities and the evaluation of project outcomes.

This paper studies the impact of the Brazilian Arranjos Productivos Locais (APL) policy, a cluster development policy, on small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) performance. Using firm-level data on SMEs for the years 2002–2009, this paper combines fixed effects with reweighting methods to estimate both the direct and the indirect causal effects of participating in the APL policy on employment growth, value of total exports, and likelihood of exporting. Our results show that APL policy generates a positive direct impact on the three outcomes of interest. They also show evidence of short-term negative spillovers effects on employment in the first year after the policy implementation and positive spillovers on export outcomes in the medium and long term. Thus, our findings highlight the importance of accounting for the timing and gestation periods of the effects on firm performances when assessing the impact of clusters policies.

This paper studies the effect of government- backed partial credit guarantees on firms’ performance in Colombia. These guarantees are automatically granted by the National Guarantee Fund (NGF) to firms without enough collateral to lift their credit constraints. We put together a panel of firms covering the period 1997–2007 that allows us to control for observed and unobserved firm characteristics potentially affecting both the selection of firms into the program and firms’ performance. We find that firms that gain access to credit backed by the NGF were able to grow in terms of both output and employment. However, we do not find any effect on productivity, wages, or investment.

We conduct a randomized experiment in 157 rural markets in Kenya to test how business training (the International Labour Organization (ILO)'s Gender and Enterprise Together program) affects the profitability, growth and survival of female-owned businesses, and to evaluate whether any gains in profitability come at the expense of other business owners. We work with a large sample of 3,537 firms, and use a two-stage randomization, first randomizing at the market-level, and then randomizing the offer of training to individuals within treated markets. A year and a half after the training has taken place, half of the sample assigned to training was then offered a subsequent mentoring intervention intended to test whether additional group-based and in-person support strengthens the impacts of training. Four rounds of follow-up surveys with low attrition are used to measure impacts at one and three years after training. This is complimented with data from a market census taken four years after training, that also included male-operated firms.

This article evaluates the effect of the Argentinean Support Program for Organizational Change on employment and wages. The program aimed at increasing small and medium-sized enterprises’ competitiveness by co-financing technical assistance to support process and product innovation activities. Although employment is not usually the main objective of these types of programs, they are always implemented assuming that they create—or at least do not destroy—employment opportunities. We to test this important assumption. Using a combination of fixed effects and matching, we find that both process and product innovation support increased employment and wages, with a higher impact on employment. In addition, we find that product innovation support had a larger effect on wages than process innovation support. We use a unique data set with information for the population of firms in Argentina from 1996 to 2008 to test this important assumption. Using a combination of fixed effects and matching, we find that both process and product innovation support increased employment and wages, with a higher impact on employment. In addition, we find that product innovation support had a larger effect on wages than process innovation support.

This paper evaluates the impact of the Chilean Supplier Development Program, aimed at improving and stabilizing the commercial linkages between small and medium-sized suppliers and their large firm customers, during the period 2003–2008. We use the panel structure of our dataset to control for observables and time-invariant unobservable factors that affect the participation and performance of firms. We find that both small and medium enterprises and large firms benefited from the coordination efforts. The program increased sales, employment, and the sustainability of small and medium-sized suppliers; it also increased the sales of large firms and raised their ability to become exporters. In addition, we find that the timing of the effect is different for suppliers and large firms. While the effect on suppliers appeared 1 year after the firms enrolled in the program, the effect on large firms took 2 years to appear.