انعطاف پذيري نيروي كار و رقابت پذيري صنايع در اقتصاد جهاني

Labor Flexibility and Competitiveness of Industries in Globalization

Introducing flexibility of the firm is a necessity for competitiveness in the globalization process. Among production factors, labor flexibility -excluding its cost position- plays a key role in the level of the firm flexibility. In fact, the firm flexibility from labor conditions perspective is considered as a main component of firm flexibility. One of the factors affecting labor flexibility is the informal employment. The Informal employment results in spread of numerical flexibility of the firm and decreasing labor expenses, thus helping to the firm flexibility at the global market levels. However, ignoring human capital of informal employees in the firm decreases the laborʹs functional flexibility and thus results in decrease in the firm competitiveness in the global markets. Then, preserving in the global markets demands an ideal combination of the both flexibilities (Numerical and Functional) for firm. This study focuses on informal employment in low-technologyʹs industrial activities to investigate to what extent whether informal employment can be effective on the firmsʹ labor flexibility and their competitive power. With using panel data method in low-technologyʹs industrial activities within 1998-2003, the results indicate that effect of informal employment on competitiveness is positive.