Workforce Developments

Using social media to connect and help migrant workers

How can social media be tapped to connect migrant workers? One project proposal to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its Knight News Challenge shows how.

The project is called Gulfconnect.net. It's designed to help migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates, and you can read the full proposal online. Here's how the proposers describe it:

Gulfconnect.net entails the creation of a website, an online social network that possesses the main features of any social networking facility such as friend requests, discussion boards and groups, with added features like translated legal documentation in written and audiovisual format, and links to assistance and relief in the event of emergencies or commonplace abusive situations. Gulfconnect.net will inform migrant workers of their rights in layperson terminology in workers native languages (Hindi, Urdu, Bangla, Tamil, Malayalam and Tagalog).

Why does a project like this matter? Again, from the proposal:

Foreigners constitute 99 percent of the UAE's private sector workforce, and—at 900,000—construction workers make up roughly one fifth of the UAE's entire population. But low wages of around $8 a day, financial exploitation by unscrupulous recruitment agents, routine withholding of wages for months at a time, the confiscation of worker passports as "security", unsafe work conditions and squalid living conditions in segregated 'labor camp' accommodation are some of the conditions facing migrant workers in the UAE and the wider Gulf. The exploitation is so dire that it has been described in many cases as forced labor.

If this project is funded, it will be a model to watch for organizations serving migrant workers aroundthe world. Internet use and access by migrant workers is limited, but growing.

The Knight Foundation should be commended for making proposals to its News Challenge available online in this open source manner. You can read through all the proposals, learn about innovative new ideas, and even comment on them. This way, we can all gain knowledge that formerly was available only to foundation program officers.

How evolved are we?

I've spent the better part of the last [redacted] hours tooling around a cool website that anyone interested in poverty, education and community should check out. The American Human Development Project measures how we're doing on an index of "human development" indicators: health, education and income. The Project's mission is

to stimulate fact-based public debate about and political attention to human development issues in the United States and to empower people with an instrument to hold elected officials accountable for progress on issues we all care about: health, education and income.

Project creators Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis have taken indicators that are commonly used in so-called "developing" countries to measure progress, and applied them here in the U.S. There's a report you can read, and interactive maps. You can even use the Well-O-Meter to get a score of your personal human development. I recommend starting there, then going to the maps, where you can compare your score against states and even against Congressional districts.

How well does the U.S. stack up worldwide? 

The U.S. ranks second among 177 countries in per-capita income but 12th on human development, according to the global Human Development Index, published annually by the United Nations Development Programme. Each of the 11 countries ahead of the U.S. has a lower per-capita income than the U.S., but all perform better on the health and knowledge dimensions.

If you love data as much as I do, you'll really enjoy the maps. If you just want the highlights, check out the Factoids page and the FAQs.

There's much, much more, so click on over to the site. This is great information anyone can use to help make voting decisions in this election season.

It's also information we as workforce development professionals should have at hand as we create new programs and seek out funding. I'd love to see some analysis on how workforce development could help us improve our human development scores. Any thoughts?

Top ten hardest working countries in the world

And the winner is... Korea, where the average employee worked 2,357 hours per year in 2006.

By comparison, American workers clocked in at an average of 1,797 hours per year, down 2% from 1,832 hours per worker per year in 1996. That ranks us #9 in the world. In other words, the average Korean works 560 hours per year more than the average American; 70 more 8-hour days, or 14 more 40-hour weeks.

For another comparison, a 40 hour work week adds up to 2,080 hours per year.

Here's the full top ten list (hours per worker per year):

1. Korea (2,357)
2. Greece (2,052)
3. Czech Republic (1,997)
4. Hungary (1,989)
5. Poland (1,985)
6. Turkey (1,918)
7. Mexico (1,883)
8. Italy (1,800)
9. United States (1,797) 
10. Iceland (1,794)

The new Factbook 2008 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) offers a host of other data on labor, productivity, public finance, environment, quality of life and more. The OECD "uses its wealth of information on a broad range of topics to help governments foster prosperity and fight poverty through economic growth and financial stability." It's made up of 30 member countries, and is one of the world's largest sources of comparable economic and social statistics.

This table shows how how all 30 OECD countries compare:

Korean worker photo: AP, via Daylife

Peace through workforce development

A friend of mine, Lisa Elaine Scott, recently produced a terrific radio documentary on community-based efforts to build peace in Northern Ireland. In it, she interviews former Senator George Mitchell, who chaired peace negotiations there in the late 1990s. What he has to say about the role of jobs and economic development in the role of reducing conflict is powerful, and relevant to what we do in the field of workforce development:

Where you have no opportunity, few jobs, no hope, there you have the ingredients for instability and violence, whether it's in Northern Ireland or Gaza or the Balkans or any big city in the United States. People need hope. They need income to support themselves and their families, and men and women need work to establish some sense of meaning in their lives. Where that doesn't exist people are much more likely and prone to fall prey to those who would use violence to achieve their objectives. Most peace negotiations focus on security and political issues. You have to. But I think they should focus equally on economic growth and job creation. Because you can't have sustainable peace unless you have economic growth, job creation and the creation of hope and opportunity for people.

Saipan's minimum wage

Participants at Saipan's first workforce development conference voted overwhelmingly in support of increasing the local minimum wage from the current $3.05 per hour. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) as the region is known, is a U.S. territory administered by the Office of Insular Affairs in the Dept. of the Interior, and has a dual minimum wage system. Wages below the U.S. minimum wage of $5.15 an hour are paid  primarily to non-resident alien workers, which make up most of the private sector workforce. A large share of them work in the garment industry. In 1995 the CNMI legislature voted to increase the minimum wage to $4.25 an hour, but this was delayed and eventually cancelled. (For more info on the CNMI minimum wage, check out this detailed bill report from 1997.) 

Democratic leaders in the incoming Congress have vowed not only to increase the U.S. minimum wage, but to apply an increase to the CNMI as well. The CNMI business community and local government are opposed to such a move.

UK: occupational standards for youth workers

Occupational standards for youth workers in the UK are being revised, and pros in the field are being asked to weigh in.  These standards set the basis for youth worker qualifications and job descriptions, as well as youth work curriculum and assessment procedures.  As the standards are being rewritten, a simultaneous effort is underway to create subject benchmarks that will be used for establishing youth work as a discrete academic discipline for the first time in Britain.  The long term goal is to establish youth work as graduate level profession in 2010. 

Britain's National Youth Agency defines youth work as "promot(ing) young people's personal and social development... delivered through a complex network of providers."  Development of the new standards is being led by Lifelong Learning UK, "the Sector Skills Council responsible for the professional development of all those working in community learning and development; further education; higher education; libraries, archives and information services; and work-based learning."

WorkforceDev in a big country

Just a smattering of links related to workforce development and China: 

1) Two missives from NetAssets asking the question, "Is China Ready for Workforce Development?"  Richard Katz found no government-funded programs, but what he describes as "an abundant supply of millions of young workers, with superior work ethics and motivation to work for low wages."   

2) Two links related to developing training programs in China to improve the logistics workforce - a training partnership with the Canadian Professional Logistics Institute, and analysis from Canada's Logistics Quarterly reporting that "Logistics has been identified by the People's Republic as one of the most significant business processes, and consequently, among the most important skill sets, to be developed in China at this time." 

(Workforce Developments readers will note our continuing interest in careers in Logistics and International Trade.) 

3) An Australian university with a special China Health Program focusing on the capacity of the country's health system, including its health care workforce. 

4) A description of International Quality Training Standards for practitioners working in renewable energy, with a brief analysis of what's happening in China.

5) A report by a professor at Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts arguing that "community colleges are becoming the vehicle of social control for economic and political elite."  He compares recent community college shifts to serving the interests of American government and corporations, to the way the Chinese government controls education there.