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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the more-or-less-getting-more-done-with-less-people dept.

Having underemployed workers can lead to two outcomes that benefit an organization—creativity and commitment to the organization—according to a new study by management experts at Rice University, Chinese University of Hong Kong at Shenzhen and Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Statistics have shown that a significant proportion of workers worldwide are underemployed or working at jobs that are below their capacity. Researchers have estimated that underemployment ranges from 17 percent to two-thirds of the workforce in Asia, Europe and North America, according to the study.

"Our results have important implications for managers," said study co-author Jing Zhou, the Houston Endowment Professor of Management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business. "Managers should not assume that employees will always respond negatively to their perception of being underemployed. Our results suggest that managers need to be vigilant in detecting perceptions of underemployment among employees.

"When managers notice that their employees feel underemployed, they should support employees' efforts to proactively change the boundaries or formal descriptions of their work tasks, such as changing the sequencing of the tasks, increasing the number of tasks that they do or enlarging the scope of the tasks," she said. "Because the perception of underemployment may be experienced by many employees, managers should provide support to sustain positive outcomes in these situations."

Not getting enough hours to qualify for benefits is a good thing?


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:13AM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:13AM (#404990)

    For example, a lot of developed world work was moved overseas without a huge permanent creation of unemployment anywhere in the world.

    Not even remotely close to true. Moving developed-world work overseas caused massive unemployment in the entire region now known as the "Rust Belt". Which got its name because the once-mighty industrial areas now lie in ruins, exposed to the elements, and quite literally rusting apart. Some parts of this region have partially recovered, many (e.g. Flint MI) still haven't.

    There's no reason why people should be working 40+ hours a week so some rich kleptocrat can avoid working.

    Why is that a problem?

    Because working does real harm to real people. The longer that coal miners are underground, the faster they get black lung disease. The longer that coders code, the more likely they are to get carpel tunnel and eye problems. The longer that managers are at work, the more likely they are to develop ulcers and other stress-related disorders. Why should we inflict that on people when the only advantage of doing so is that people who already have more money than they could ever need get even more money? This goal makes no sense, and doesn't even make the super-rich happy.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:20AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:20AM (#404994) Journal

    Not even remotely close to true. Moving developed-world work overseas caused massive unemployment in the entire region now known as the "Rust Belt". Which got its name because the once-mighty industrial areas now lie in ruins, exposed to the elements, and quite literally rusting apart. Some parts of this region have partially recovered, many (e.g. Flint MI) still haven't.

    A region isn't a worker. Workers readily moved out of those regions and found work elsewhere. For example, in the early to mid 80s, a number of people moved to Texas to take advantage of the oil boom at the time. For another example, Detroit in the 50s peaked at just under 2 million people, now it's somewhere around 700k. Those people who are no longer there didn't evaporate. They moved on to regions where their work was desired.

    Because working does real harm to real people. The longer that coal miners are underground, the faster they get black lung disease. The longer that coders code, the more likely they are to get carpel tunnel and eye problems. The longer that managers are at work, the more likely they are to develop ulcers and other stress-related disorders. Why should we inflict that on people when the only advantage of doing so is that people who already have more money than they could ever need get even more money? This goal makes no sense, and doesn't even make the super-rich happy.

    Because everyone chooses to do that. Why interfere in mutually beneficial agreements?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:41AM

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:41AM (#404999)

      A region isn't a worker. Workers readily moved out of those regions and found work elsewhere.

      Then how come unemployment in Detroit climbed from a modest 7% in 2001 to a whopping 28% in 2009, and now is still at 10%, over 5% higher than the nation at large? Your theories suggest that this would be an impossibility, as all those people left for greener pastures, but there they are, desperately looking for work. I can think of a lot of reasons for that: Moving elsewhere isn't free, being married to somebody with a job in the area that they can't afford to leave, having to stay to take care of aging parents, etc.

      Because everyone chooses to do that. Why interfere in mutually beneficial agreements?

      Because when the alternative to "choosing to do that" is starvation, homelessness, an endless cycle of debt, or other financial catastrophes, how much of a choice is it, really?

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:57PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:57PM (#405107) Journal

        Then how come unemployment in Detroit climbed from a modest 7% in 2001 to a whopping 28% in 2009, and now is still at 10%, over 5% higher than the nation at large?

        [...]

        Your theories suggest that this would be an impossibility, as all those people left for greener pastures, but there they are, desperately looking for work.

        They did. Note that Detroit's population in 2000 was 951,270 and was estimated to be 677,116 [freep.com] in 2015. That's almost three hundred thousand people seeking greener pastures just since the dotcom era.

        Because when the alternative to "choosing to do that" is starvation, homelessness, an endless cycle of debt, or other financial catastrophes, how much of a choice is it, really?

        It sure is, since they have a choice of jobs. There isn't a single employer, but instead a large number of employers and hence, competition for workers.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @10:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @10:49PM (#405323)

    "This goal makes no sense, and doesn't even make the super-rich happy."

    See: http://www.livableincome.org/amillionairegli.htm [livableincome.org]