The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Recovery of employment: towards a sustainable model

The adverse effects on Latin America and the Caribbean of the global economic and financial crisis, the worst since the 1930s, have been considerably less than was once feared. Although a run of growth was cut short in 2009 and regional output shrank by 1.9%, the impact of the crisis was limited by the application of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies by many of the region’s governments. The recovery in the economies, particularly in South America, has gone hand-in-hand with the rapid resurgence of the emerging economies of Asia, with all the favourable consequences this has had for global trade. A similar pattern may be observed regarding the impact of the crisis on labour markets in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although millions of people lost their jobs or had to trade down to lower-quality work, levels of employment (including formal employment) fell by less than originally foreseen. At the same time, real wages rose slightly in a context of falling inflation. The labour market thus stabilized domestic demand, and this contributed to the recovery that began in many countries in late 2009. Improved international trade and financing conditions, and the pick-up in domestic demand driven by macroeconomic policies, have led different commentators to estimate growth in the region’s economy at some 6% in 2010. As detailed in the first part of this edition of the Bulletin, the upturn has been manifested at the regional level by the creation of formal employment, a rise in the employment rate, a decline in joblessness and a moderate increase in real wages. Specifically, it is estimatedthat the regional unemployment rate will have dropped by 0.6 percentage points, from 8.1% in 2009 to 7.5% in 2010. The performance of different countries and subregions has been very uneven, however. On the one hand, there is Brazil, where high economic growth has been accompanied by vigorous creation of formal jobs and the unemployment rate has dropped to levels not seen in a long time. Other countries in South America have benefited from strong demand for natural resources from the Asian countries. Combined with higher domestic demand, this has raised their economic growth rates and had a positive impact on employment indicators. On the other hand, the recovery is still very weak in certain countries and subregions, particularly in the Caribbean, with employment indicators continuing to worsen.Thus, the recovery in the region’s economy in 2010 may be characterized as dynamic but uneven. Growth estimates for 2011 are less favourable. The risks associated with the imbalances in the world economy and the withdrawal of countercyclical fiscal packages are likely to cause the region to grow more slowly in 2011. Accordingly, a small further reduction of between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points in the unemployment rate is projected for 2011. However, these indicators of recovery do not guarantee growth with decent work in the long term. To bolster the improvement in labour market indicators and generate more productive employment and decent work, the region’s countries need to strengthen their macroeconomic policies, improve regional and global policy coordination, identify and remove bottlenecks in the labour market itself and enhance instruments designed to promote greater equality. Like the rest of the world, the Latin American and Caribbean region is also confronted with the challenge of transforming the way it produces so that its economies can develop along tracks that are sustainable in the long term. Climate change and the consequent challenge of developing and strengthening low-carbon production and consumption patterns will also affect the way people work. A great challenge ahead is to create green jobs that combine decent work with environmentally sustainable production patterns. From this perspective, the second part of this Bulletin discusses the green jobs approach, offering some information on the challenges and opportunities involved in moving towards a sustainable economy in the region and presenting a set of options for addressing environmental issues and the repercussions of climate change in the world of work. Although the debate about the green jobs concept is fairly new in the region, examples already exist and a number of countries have moved ahead with the application of policies and programmes in this area. Costa Rica has formulated a National Climate Change Strategy, for example, whose foremost achievements include professional training in natural-resource management. In Brazil, fuel production from biomass has increased and social housing with solar panelling is being built. A number of other countries in the region are making progress in areas such as ecotourism, sustainable agriculture and infrastructure for climate change adaptation, and in formalizing the work of people who recycle household waste. The shift towards a more environmentally sustainable economy may cause jobs to be destroyed in some economic sectors and created in others. The working world will inevitably undergo major changes. If the issue is approached by way of social dialogue and appropriate public policies, there is a chance to use this shift to create more decent jobs, thereby contributing to growth in the economy, the construction of higher levels of equality and protection for the environment.

Towards a demand model for maritime passenger transportation in the Caribbean: a regional study of passenger ferry services

In this paper, the main factors that influence the demand for maritime passenger transportation in the Caribbean were studied. While maritime studies in the Caribbean have focused on infrastructural and operational systems for intensifying trade and movement of goods, there is little information on the movement of persons within the region and its potential to encourage further integration and sustainable development. Data to inform studies and policies in this area are particularly difficult to source. For this study, an unbalanced data set for the 2000-2014 period in 15 destinations with a focus on departing ferry passengers was compiled. Further a demand equation for maritime passenger transportation in the Caribbean using panel data methods was estimated. The results showed that this demand is related to the real fare of the service, international economic activity and the number of passengers arriving in the country by air.

Reference model for implementing an MRP system in a highly diverse component and seasonal lean production environment

Companies are currently choosing to integrate logics and systems to achieve better solutions. These combinations also include companies striving to join the logic of material requirement planning (MRP) system with the systems of lean production. The purpose of this article was to design an MRP as part of the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) in a company that produces agricultural implements, which has used the lean production system since 1998. This proposal is based on the innovation theory, theory networks, lean production systems, ERP systems and the hybrid production systems, which use both components and MRP systems, as concepts of lean production systems. The analytical approach of innovation networks enables verification of the links and relationships among the companies and departments of the same corporation. The analysis begins with the MRP implementation project carried out in a Brazilian metallurgical company and follows through the operationalisation of the MRP project, until its production stabilisation. The main point is that the MRP system should help the company's operations with regard to its effective agility to respond in time to demand fluctuations, facilitating the creation process and controlling the branch offices in other countries that use components produced in the matrix, hence ensuring more accurate estimates of stockpiles. Consequently, it presents the enterprise knowledge development organisational modelling methodology in order to represent further models (goals, actors and resources, business rules, business process and concepts) that should be included in this MRP implementation process for the new configuration of the production system.

Forecasting the need for medical specialists in Spain: application of a system dynamics model

[EN] Background: Spain has gone from a surplus to a shortage of medical doctors in very few years. Medium and long-term planning for health professionals has become a high priority for health authorities. Methods: We created a supply and demand/need simulation model for 43 medical specialties using system dynamics. The model includes demographic, education and labour market variables. Several scenarios were defined. Variables controllable by health planners can be set as parameters to simulate different scenarios. The model calculates the supply and the deficit or surplus. Experts set the ratio of specialists needed per 1000 inhabitants with a Delphi method. Results: In the scenario of the baseline model with moderate population growth, the deficit of medical specialists will grow from 2% at present (2800 specialists) to 14.3% in 2025 (almost 21 000). The specialties with the greatest medium-term shortages are Anesthesiology, Orthopedic and Traumatic Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Aesthetic and Reparatory Surgery, Family and Community Medicine, Pediatrics, Radiology, and Urology. Conclusions: The model suggests the need to increase the number of students admitted to medical school. Training itineraries should be redesigned to facilitate mobility among specialties. In the meantime, the need to make more flexible the supply in the short term is being filled by the immigration of physicians from new members of the European Union and from Latin America.

A GIS based model for solving the planar Huff problem considering different demand distributions and forbidden regions

[EN] In this paper, we have used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to solve the planar Huff problem considering different demand distributions and forbidden regions. Most of the papers connected with the competitive location problems consider that the demand is aggregated in a finite set of points. In other few cases, the models suppose that the demand is distributed along the feasible region according to a functional form, mainly a uniform distribution. In this case, in addition to the discrete and uniform demand distributions we have considered that the demand is represented by a population surface model, that is, a raster map where each pixel has associated a value corresponding to the population living in the area that it covers...

Role Stress and Job Outcomes in Public Accounting: Have the Gender Experiences Converged?

Using data collected from professionals in a large U.S. national public accounting firm, we explored gender differences in perceived levels of role stress and job outcomes as well as the effects of a healthy lifestyle as a coping mechanism for role stress, burnout and related job outcomes. Our large sample size (1,681) and equal participation by women (49.7%) and men (50.3%) allowed us to analyze the causal relationships of these variables using a previously tested multi-disciplinary research model (Jones, Norman, & Wier, 2010). We found that women and men perceive similar levels of role stress as defined by role ambiguity and role overload, and that women perceive less role conflict. Men and women perceive similar levels of job satisfaction and job performance. Contrary to earlier studies, women do not report higher levels of turnover intentions. Results show that efforts of the public accounting firms over the past decade may be somewhat successful in reducing the levels of role stress and turnover intentions among women. Another plausible explanation could be that an expansionist theory of gender, work and family (Barnett & Hyde, 2001) may now be responsible for improved well-being of females to the point where the genders have converged in their experience of role stress and job outcomes in public accounting.

Occupational, personal and psychosocial resources for preventing persistent low back pain

The aim of this prospective cohort study was to identify modifiable protective factors of the progression of acute/subacute low back pain (LBP) to the persistent state at an early stage to reduce the socioeconomic burden of persistent LBP. Patients attending a health practitioner for acute/subacute LBP were assessed at baseline addressing occupational, personal and psychosocial factors, and followed up over 12 weeks. Pearson correlations were calculated between these baseline factors and the presence of nonpersistent LBP at 12-week follow-up. For those factors found to be significant, multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. The final 3-predictor model included job satisfaction, mental health and social support. The accuracy of the model was 72%, with 81% of nonpersistent and 60% of persistent LBP patients correctly identified. Further research is necessary to confirm the role of different types of social support regarding their prognostic influence on the development of persistent LBP.

Meta-model for calculating the mean energy demand of automated storage and retrieval systems

Energy efficiency has become an important research topic in intralogistics. Especially in this field the focus is placed on automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) utilizing stacker cranes as these systems are widespread and consume a significant portion of the total energy demand of intralogistical systems. Numerical simulation models were developed to calculate the energy demand rather precisely for discrete single and dual command cycles. Unfortunately these simulation models are not suitable to perform fast calculations to determine a mean energy demand value of a complete storage aisle. For this purpose analytical approaches would be more convenient but until now analytical approaches only deliver results for certain configurations. In particular, for commonly used stacker cranes equipped with an intermediate circuit connection within their drive configuration there is no analytical approach available to calculate the mean energy demand. This article should address this research gap and present a calculation approach which enables planners to quickly calculate the energy demand of these systems.

Patient classification system: An integrated method for measuring nursing intensity and optimizing resource allocation

A patient classification system was developed integrating a patient acuity instrument with a computerized nursing distribution method based on a linear programming model. The system was designed for real-time measurement of patient acuity (workload) and allocation of nursing personnel to optimize the utilization of resources.^ The acuity instrument was a prototype tool with eight categories of patients defined by patient severity and nursing intensity parameters. From this tool, the demand for nursing care was defined in patient points with one point equal to one hour of RN time. Validity and reliability of the instrument was determined as follows: (1) Content validity by a panel of expert nurses; (2) predictive validity through a paired t-test analysis of preshift and postshift categorization of patients; (3) initial reliability by a one month pilot of the instrument in a practice setting; and (4) interrater reliability by the Kappa statistic.^ The nursing distribution system was a linear programming model using a branch and bound technique for obtaining integer solutions. The objective function was to minimize the total number of nursing personnel used by optimally assigning the staff to meet the acuity needs of the units. A penalty weight was used as a coefficient of the objective function variables to define priorities for allocation of staff.^ The demand constraints were requirements to meet the total acuity points needed for each unit and to have a minimum number of RNs on each unit. Supply constraints were: (1) total availability of each type of staff and the value of that staff member (value was determined relative to that type of staff's ability to perform the job function of an RN (i.e., value for eight hours RN = 8 points, LVN = 6 points); (2) number of personnel available for floating between units.^ The capability of the model to assign staff quantitatively and qualitatively equal to the manual method was established by a thirty day comparison. Sensitivity testing demonstrated appropriate adjustment of the optimal solution to changes in penalty coefficients in the objective function and to acuity totals in the demand constraints.^ Further investigation of the model documented: correct adjustment of assignments in response to staff value changes; and cost minimization by an addition of a dollar coefficient to the objective function. ^