Middle East and Central Asia > Oman

You are looking at 1 - 2 of 2 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Labor Demand x
Clear All Modify Search
Mr. Alberto Behar
We estimate the elasticity of private-sector employment to non-oil GDP in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for GCC nationals and expatriates using a Seemingly Unrelated Error Correction (SUREC) model. Our results indicate that the employment response is lower for nationals, who have an estimated short-run elasticity of only 0.15 and a long-run response of 0.7 or less. The elasticity is almost unity for expatriates in the long run and 0.35 in the short run. We interpret low elasticities as indirect evidence of labor market adjustment costs, which could include hiring and firing rigidities, skills mismatches, and reluctance to accept private sector jobs. Forecasts suggest that, absent measures to reduce adjustment costs, the private sector will only be able to absorb a small portion of nationals entering the labor force.
Mr. Alberto Behar
and
Mr. Junghwan Mok
We quantify the extent to which public-sector employment crowds out private-sector employment using specially assembled datasets for a large cross-section of developing and advanced countries, and discuss the implications for countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Caucasus and Central Asia. These countries simultaneously display high unemployment rates, low private-sector employment rates and high proportions of government-sector employment. Regressions of either private-sector employment rates or unemployment rates on two measures of public-sector employment point to full crowding out. This means that high rates of public employment, which incur substantial fiscal costs, have a large negative impact on private employment rates and do not reduce overall unemployment rates.