The Work Profiler: Revision and maintenance of a profiling tool for the recently unemployed in the Netherlands

Shin D.

With the growing presence of algorithms and their far-reaching effects, artificial intelligence (AI) will be mainstream trends any time soon. Despite this surging popularity, little is known about ...

Brouwer S., Bakker R.H., Schellekens J.M.

The aim of the present study was to examine which personal and situational factors affect reemployment success in persons in their first year of unemployment. In a prospective cohort study with a one-year follow-up, we investigated a sample of 3618 subjects who became unemployed. A survey was sent to all participants, including personal and situational factors, based on Wanberg's model, the Theory of Planned Behavior model and the Valence–Instrumentality–Expectancy model. Our results showed that ten key-factors predicted re-employment success in the first year after becoming unemployed. Knowing these factors, and in particular those which are amenable to change through any intervention program, may help to develop effective intervention strategies for those who facilitate reemployment in order to shorten the duration of unemployment.

van Houwelingen H., Putter H.

Rogerson P.

Caswell D., Marston G., Larsen J.E.

The paper explores recent developments in Australian and Danish unemployment policies with a special focus on the technologies used to classify and categorize unemployed people on government benefits. Using governmentality as our theoretical framework, we consider the implications of reducing complex social problems to statistical scores and differentiated categories — forms of knowledge that diminish the capacity to think about unemployment as a collective problem requiring collective solutions. What we argue is that classification systems, which are part and parcel of welfare state administration, are becoming more technocratic in the way in which they divide the population into different categories of risk.

Wanberg C.R., Hough L.M., Song Z.

The authors propose a multidisciplinary model of the predictors of reemployment and test its predictive validity for explaining reemployment success. Predictor variables from the fields of economics, sociology, and psychology are incorporated into the model. Reemployment success is conceptualized as a construct consisting of unemployment insurance exhaustion and reemployment speed, and for reemployed persons, job improvement, job-organization fit, and intention to leave the new job. Direct, mediated, and moderated relationships were hypothesized and tested, clarifying the role of the variables in the reemployment process and outcome. The authors' proposal and examination of a multidisciplinary model of reemployment success contributes to a literature that has not tended to adequately cross disciplinary boundaries.

Cohen J.

One possible reason for the continued neglect of statistical power analysis in research in the behavioral sciences is the inaccessibility of or difficulty with the standard material. A convenient, although not comprehensive, presentation of required sample sizes is provided here. Effect-size indexes and conventional values for these are given for operationally defined small, medium, and large effects. The sample sizes necessary for .80 power to detect effects at these levels are tabled for eight standard statistical tests: (a) the difference between independent means, (b) the significance of a product-moment correlation, (c) the difference between independent rs, (d) the sign test, (e) the difference between independent proportions, (f) chi-square tests for goodness of fit and contingency tables, (g) one-way analysis of variance, and (h) the significance of a multiple or multiple partial correlation.

Kuha J.

The two most commonly used penalized model selection criteria, the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and Akaike’s information criterion (AIC), are examined and compared. Their motivations as approximations of two different target quantities are discussed, and their performance in estimating those quantities is assessed. Despite their different foundations, some similarities between the two statistics can be observed, for example, in analogous interpretations of their penalty terms. The behavior of the criteria in selecting good models for observed data is examined with simulated data and also illustrated with the analysis of two well-known data sets on social mobility. It is argued that useful information for model selection can be obtained from using AIC and BIC together, particularly from trying as far as possible to find models favored by both criteria.

Hastie T., Friedman J., Tibshirani R.

The model errors do not have obvious clusters unless there are obvious errors in the model. Our clustering strategy was to get meaningful spatio-temporal distribution of the model errors based on the distribution of data in the clusters. In addition, common statistics that have been used so far in the validation of the models can be calculated for each cluster. We wanted to keep the clustering procedure relatively simple and easy to implement for the wide audience who are not experts in the field of unsupervised machine learning. The other aspect of using the K-means, instead of the other algorithms, e.g. kernel K-means, was the relatively low computational time. Usually, in ocean model validation we deal with a huge dataset.

Liira J., Matikainen E., Leino-Arjas P., Malmivaara A., Mutanen P., Rytkönen H., Juntunen J.

The work ability of 961 construction workers, aged 40 yr and over, was followed in two consecutive interviews in 1991 and 1995. A total of 736 (77%) construction workers participated in the follow-up interview. A work ability index was calculated for each respondent at baseline and at follow-up. Information on disability pensions was obtained from the registries of the LEL Employment Pension Fund. The actual working status was followed in the pension insurance register. Due to the recession during the early 1990s, nearly half of the respondents were unemployed for at least some period during the study. The work ability declined, especially in the age-group 50 yr and older. The work ability index was highly predictive of disability pensions during the follow-up. Relevance to industry Reduced work ability and early retirement due to disabilities is commonplace in physically demanding jobs. There are few methods to forecast and monitor the risk of disability. This paper presents an easy to administer questionnaire, the work ability index, which is suitable for description and prediction of work ability in a group of ageing workers in physically demanding tasks, such as construction work.

FURNHAM A., RAWLES R.

Two-hundred and seventy British final-year school-leavers completed a questionnaire battery looking at attitudes to school, attributions for unemployment, job search strategies and the perceived characteristics of an ideal job. Six varimax-rotated factor analyses were performed on each part of the six part questionnaire. In accordance with similar studies in the area, each of the questionnaire sections yielded a predictable factor structure. Higher-order factor analysis showed five clear factors, which together accounted for nearly 45% of the variance. They were labelled: self-effort strategies, fatalistic, background, extrinsic and alienated. This showed that job search strategies, career advice, employment attributions and the perceived most and least desirable features of jobs are clearly interrelated. The complexity and interrelatedness of these cognitions about work suggest they may be difficult to change.

Blau G.

Empirical support for a two-dimensional measure of job search behavior was found using 114 hospital employees, 103 pharmaceutical managers, and 418 graduating college seniors. The two dimensions are preparatory job search behavior and active job search behavior. A structural model of determinants and consequences of job search behavior was tested using the hospital employee and pharmaceutical manager samples. LISREL results indicated that financial need and task-specific self-esteem affected both job search behaviors, and that task-specific self-esteem moderated the relationship between job search behaviors. Results and limitations of the study are discussed.

Ajzen I., Driver B.L.

The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1987) is used to predict leisure intentions and behavior. College students completed a questionnaire that measured involvement, moods, attitudes, subjec...

Kopelman R.E., Rovenpor J.L., Millsap R.E.

A conceptual framework for the determinants of organizational turnover which identifies five panels of variables—job properties, affective/attitudinal reactions, intentions to leave/stay, job search behavior, and turnover occurrences—is advanced. Accordingly, it is reasoned that job search behavior (e.g., revising one's resume) is a more immediate precursor of voluntary turnover than are antecedent variables, such as intentions. Further, it is argued that behavior is required to translate intentions into results. Data from three samples indicate that the Job Search Behavior Index (JSBI) is psychometrically sound and construct valid. Evidence also indicates that the JSBI is a superior predictor of organizational turnover (and intraorganizational job change) in comparison to attitudinal and intention measures. Moreover, stepwise multiple regression and discriminant analyses indicate that the JSBI explains significant incremental variance in turnover, over and beyond the variance explained by perceptual, affective, attitudinal, and intention measures combined.

Cohen J.

pression, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 51, 61-69 (1990). 11. L.R. Baxter, Jr., J.M. Schwartz, B.H. Guze, J.C. Mazziotta, M.P. Szuba, K. Bergman, A. Alazraki, C.E. Selin, H.K. Freng, P. Munford, and M.E. Phelps, Obsessive-compulsive disorder vs. Tourette's disorder: Differential function in subdivi sions of the neostriatum, paper presented at the an nual meeting of the American College of Neuropsy chopharmacology, San Juan, Puerto Rico (December 1991). 12. E.M. Reiman, M.E. Raichle, F.K. Butler, P. Herscovitch, and E. Robins, A focal brain abnormal ity in panic disorder, a severe form of anxiety, Na ture, 310, 683-685 (1984); E.M. Reiman, M.E. Ra ichle, E. Robins, F.K. Butler, P. Herscovitch, P. Fox, and J. Perlmutter, The application of positron emis sion tomography to the study of panic disorder, American Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 469-477 (1986); T.E. Nordahl, W.E. Semple, M. Gross, T.A. Mellman, M.B. Stein, P. Goyer, A.C. King, T.W. Uhde, and R.M. Cohen, Cerebral glucose metabolic differences in patients with panic disorder, Neuro psychopharmacology, 3, 261-272 (1990).