Amidst economic growth in South Africa, there is increasing job losses. Although a decline in work opportunities is a worldwide trend, in South Africa it is aggravated by the imbalance between skilled and unskilled labour. Recent HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council) research indicated that further job losses (especially for unskilled labour) can be expected over the next five years. Job creation is important to South Africa. Entrepreneurial activity is seen as an essential source of economic growth and the development of small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) can stimulate job creation. Self-employment is seen as the driving force of economic growth. In South Africa there has been a growth of 15% in self-employment since 1991. Unfortunately, failure is the rule. True entrepreneurship entails value creation for owners, stakeholders, customers, employees and the economy as whole. South Africa with its high unemployment urgently needs to assure that self-employment is truly entrepreneurial rather than only a job substitute to merely survive. It has been indicated that successful SMMEs were generally run by highly educated and experienced entrepreneurs the world over. If these highly educated employers were to be inspired to create more jobs, the constraints they experience, should be addressed. The development of human capital is the first step towards economic growth. Quality education and not just quantity of education is required. More co-operation between tertiary institutions, government, and the business world with regard to contents of programmes and opportunities for practical experience is required. First, however, the skills required for growth need to be identified and developed. Quality education can contribute to skills development and quality businesses that can increase exports that are of high quality and tailor-made to the needs of the consumer. Skills that need to be improved are leadership skills, technical, managerial, accounting, communication, marketing, and sales skills that are required for successful entrepreneurship in the global village. The main focus of the study is thus on the required skills that could differentiate between self¬employment and entrepreneurship. The role of especially communication skills is looked into with more depth. Although different roles are required at various stages of development in a business, at each stage communication is crucial. Prior to the start-up phase, networks with a high level of interaction should be developed, as networks link entrepreneurs to resources and provide information exchange opportunities. Once the venture has been initiated and begins to grow, the leader needs to become more concerned with communicating the vision or plan with providing subordinates with the power to accomplish tasks and participate in the process. The main success factors are discussed. A positive attitude was the first step towards success. Perseverance, hard work, trustworthiness, and responsibility were the main factors that contributed to success. True leaders who use transformational processes to achieve goals and persuade others to accept their vision for the organisation can achieve perseverance, hard work, trustworthiness, and responsibility. Open communication builds trust that leads to more open communication and more trust. Strong leadership instead of only narrow technical skills were required. For venturing and further growth, enhanced information and communication systems were required. In order to deal with change and turbulent environments, organisations must incorporate communication mechanisms for coordination. The network strategy of organization is appropriate for organisations that have to cope with high levels of uncertainty. In growth organizations, close collaboration of a manager with other people was necessary in resolving differences and in inspiring others towards a common goal. The main constraints to achieving desired goals were high taxation, market constraints, crime, access to finance, labour legislation, scarce skills, and inadequate opportunities for communication and networking. The perception among some self-employed graduates that labour market laws impact on their businesses, the high unemployment in the country and the fact that most self-employed graduates indicated that they did not wish to increase the staff complement of their companies (even those who had a high turnover), places a question mark on the appropriateness or appropriate communication of the requirements of the present regulations and legislation. Even if many of the legislative requirements were not applicable to most self-employed graduates, the perception was there that it impacted or will impact on their businesses if they increase their staff complement. Even a perception has its consequences. It is crucial to address the legislation and communicate clearly that which is required from very small firms as opposed to that which is required from medium and large firms in more simplified terms. It is crucial that government takes note of the constraints, as many self-employed graduates did not have the will to grow in fear of detrimental consequences for their businesses, may it be high taxation, crime or the impact of legislation. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Communication Management / MPhil / Unrestricted

Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

No description available.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The South African economy is faced with a crisis of persistently high and rising unemployment rates. Although this is a cause for serious concern, the statistic captures a segment of the working-age population enduring recurrent spells of unemployment – a vulnerable group for consideration that these figures fail to uncover. The dilemma could be linked to the influx of previously disadvantaged groups (i.e. Africans and females) into the labour market since the dawn of democracy. Thus, the newly appointed South African government inherits an economy that had systematically disadvantaged most of the population, leading to an oversupply of labour, where highly-skilled labour appears to be more appealing in comparison to the relatively low-skilled labour offered by these persons. Historically suppressed groups thus disproportionately bear the brunt of this unemployment, where some may have involuntarily remained rooted in unemployment for longer periods of time than those considered unemployed on a temporal basis. The importance of exploring and understanding the roles of some underlying forces is extremely crucial to wrestle this pressing issue in a South African context, when examining labour market dynamics. This study therefore explores the nature and extent of chronic unemployment by examining the data of the first four available waves (2008, 2010/2011, 2012 and 2014/2015) of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS). The empirical findings reveal that those significantly more susceptible to chronic unemployment are: African individuals with either incomplete secondary education or at most a Matric qualification in tandem with an additional certificate/diploma, residing in traditional areas in less wealthy provinces (i.e. Free State and Mpumalanga). Furthermore, the results demonstrate that these chronically unemployed individuals are more likely to form part of the youth (25-44 years), be non-poor, with their household composition consisting of one to five household members where the minority enjoy wage employment whereas the majority endure spells of unemployment. Ultimately, they devote themselves to informal employment and occupations requiring semi-skilled and relatively unskilled labour in the community, social and personal services industry and on average earn R 3 342 per month in 2016 December prices.

Seventy percent of stroke survivors experience loss of upper limb function after stroke and rehabilitative therapy is the only option to reduce impairments. However, uncertainty remains as to the optimal dose of therapy that should be prescribed. It has been suggested to report multiple parameters of dose, to increase standardization within the field, and to gain a better understanding of the dose-response relationship. This study investigated the automatic quantification of multiple dose parameters in a rat model of ischemic stroke, with rehabilitation paradigms whereby rats repeatedly grasp for food pellets to train their forelimb function. Starting 7 days post-stroke, groups of rats received 4, 8, or 12 rehabilitative training sessions for 10 days, practicing either high-quality (precision practice) or less skilled (mass practice) reaching movements. Pellet consumption was measured after each session and various metrics were analyzed using deep learning-based software (DeepLabCut, DLC) to represent parameters of dose intensity (number of reaches, paw path length) and session density (time on task). Functional outcome was assessed with the Montoya staircase task. Computer algorithms were validated against human analysis, demonstrating reach detection accuracy and reliability >80%. Interestingly, the number of training sessions did not alter the accumulated movement practice across rehabilitation, in either task. However, the number of sessions inversely affected training intensity, resulting in more forelimb use per session in rats with 4 sessions compared to 12 sessions. We found strong positive correlations between the number of reaches, time on task, paw path length, and pellets consumed in the precision practice, but only between reaches and pellets consumed in mass practice. This work demonstrates the quantification of multiple dose parameters using deep learning software and shows subtle differences between the two commonly used forelimb training tasks. Moreover, our data suggest that rehabilitative training at a frequency that is too high may negatively impact performance per session.

No description available.

Participants in the author’s training program for OT practitioners who work in skilled nursing facilities will gain an understanding of the need and requirements for ongoing wheelchair seating and positioning management of long-term care residents. BACKGROUND: Elderly individuals admitted to a skilled nursing facility receive initial occupational therapy (OT) evaluation for appropriate wheelchair (WC) seating. On extended stay, the resident’s seating needs often change, leading to postural impairment from improper positioning. Lack of awareness of poor positioning by residents, particularly when cognitive issues are present, can delay corrective action because they may not call attention to difficulties or discomfort. Occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) can play a distinctive role in ensuring that proper wheelchair seating and positioning of older residents is maintained. The author’s aim is to create a prototype program designed to mitigate the risk that accompanies poor wheelchair positioning and that can be carried out at any skilled nursing facility (SNF). OBJECTIVES: The author’s project will address the recognized need for a training program for occupational therapy practitioners that will provide guidelines for assessing, evaluating and planning the appropriate intervention for an elderly manual wheelchair user in a skilled nursing facility. Objectives for the resident include reduction in the incidence of wound development, improvement of functioning, and increase in participation in the care environment with other wheelchair users. METHOD: Program implementation will begin with facility recruitment. The author will create a handout illustrating the planned program and will distribute it in person or via mail to administrators of skilled nursing and residential care facilities within a 100-mile radius that have a rehabilitation department and one or more OT practitioners. When interest is expressed by a recipient, the author will contact the facility and conduct a short interview to discuss problems and concerns, the availability of staff incentives for participation in inservice training, and payment for the author’s services. Depending upon the author’s assessment of participant knowledge, skills and needs, training will be adjusted from an introductory to intermediate level. As part of the proposed program, the author will recommend that OT practitioners instruct nursing and other caregiving staff to periodically screen every wheelchair-dependent resident when they are providing direct care during their daily routines. Miller, Miller, Trenholm, Grant and Goodman (2004) developed the Seating Identification Tool (SIT) to fill the need for an easy to administer screening questionnaire that would be sufficiently sensitive for clinical assessment and research. ANTICIPATED FINDINGS: Occupational therapy practitioners will play a distinctive role in ensuring that proper wheelchair seating and positioning of older residents is maintained. Preventing pressure ulcers will prove to be much less costly than medical treatment, both to the resident and the facility. Reduction in time lost from daily occupations to allow healing will improve the client’s sense of well-being. OT practitioners will be called upon to make periodic adjustments in wheelchair fitting and positioning, which might as simple as providing an appropriate wheelchair cushion. LIMITATIONS: Program development and program evaluation research are in the initial stages and have not yet been implemented in any skilled nursing facility. RECOMMENDATIONS: The author recommends implementation of the pilot program in a skilled nursing facility with data gathering for program evaluation research to gain evidence and further refine the program.

No description available.

The ‘race for talent’ on the global labor market is an increasingly discussed subject amongst EU policymakers. Skilled migration schemes have therefore been on the rise. By using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), the paper analyses 12 documents published by the EU between 2009 and 2021 regarding skilled migration. The theoretical framework the discussion is entrenched in is the ethical political spectrum reaching over political idealism and realism. Within the EU, migration policy is described to have an idealist character, with free movement and clear democratic values. Towards its neighboring countries, it is less clear where the EU stands in terms thereof. Dissecting EU skilled migration schemes and discourse hopes to locate EU foreign policy on that spectrum more clearly. An additional question to this main research topic is whether the EU adjusts its migration policies according to the governments of the countries of origin. As two increasingly important countries of origin for skilled migrants, the examples of Tunisia and Egypt were chosen. The analysis exemplifies thereby the EU’s approach to a democratic and an authoritarian government. The selection of the documents was therefore guided by their link to those countries.The study found that though the EU does not overtly discriminate against non-democratic forms of government in the context of skilled migration, they nonetheless organize their relations with third countries in a hierarchical manner. This entails certain privileges for countries committed to democratic values. Moreover, the EU skilled migration policy is found to be neither distinctly realist nor idealist. Instead, an overview of the different components of EU skilled migration policy and places them on the political ethical spectrum is provided.

No / The proportion of skilled labour in subsidiaries is influenced by size and development of host country, and subsidiary role, the latter being connected to autonomy and intra-organisational relationships. In this paper, we conceptually explore subsidiary¿s proportion of skilled labour in relation to subsidiary role within the context of a small developed country. Specifically, we draw on the literature of strategic development of multinational corporations, and insights of inward foreign direct investments in small developed countries. This is presented in a unifying framework in order to predict diverse categorizations of subsidiary role¿s impact on the proportion of skilled labour in subsidiaries.