On October 4 and 5 1997, the Canadian International Labour Network (CILN) held a workshop on "Losing Work: International Perspectives on Job Displacement". This was a working meeting of authors representing ten countries, who will be collaborating on a book to be published by Michigan's Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, U.K., and U.S. were the countries represented. At the meeting the authors presented descriptions of the policy environment affecting displaced workers in each country, and the data available to study displaced workers in each country. This quantitative analysis, largely by labour economists, was supplemented by a presentation by Val Lougheed, a local outplacement counsellor, who has had years of personal experience with displaced workers.
Final results of this research project will be presented at the second major CILN conference in the Hamilton area in September 1998. The ultimate goal is to paint the first comprehensive statistical picture of what it is like for long-service employees to lose a job in a variety of developed countries, and to learn about the functioning of different national labour markets from these differences.
Here is a picture of some of the participants of the workshop. The workshop programme follows. Final papers are now available here.Canterbury Hills Conference Centre
Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
October 4-5, 1997
Saturday, October 4
8:15-8:45 am Breakfast
8:45-9:00: Opening Remarks (Peter Kuhn, McMaster University)
9:00-9:45 United States (Chris Ruhm, University of North Carolina)
9:45-10:30 Canada (Arthur Sweetman, University of Victoria)
10:30-10:45 coffee
10:45-11:30 Australia (Jeff Borland, Australian National University)
11:30-12:15 Belgium (Marc van Audenrode, Université Laval)
12:15-2:15 lunch and nature walk
2:15-3:00 "The Experience of Displacement" (Val Lougheed, Northern Lights Vocational Consultants)
3:00- 3:45 Denmark (Karsten Albæk, University of Copenhagen)
3:45-4:30 France (David Margolis, Université de Paris 1)
6:30 depart for workshop dinner
Sunday, October 5
8:30-9:00 Breakfast
9:00-9:45 Germany (Christian Dustmann, University College London)
9:45-10:30 Netherlands (Jaap Abbring, University of Amsterdam)
10:30-10:45 coffee
10:45- 11:30 Japan (Masao Nakamura, University of British Columbia)
11:30-12:30 United Kingdom (Genevieve Knight, London School of Economics)
12:30-1:30 lunch
1:30- 3:00 informal discussion of country pairs, common definitions of displaced workers, and research plans.