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Absentee Workers
Workers whose names are listed on the payroll, and are not on any authorized leave of absence, but do not attend for work as required in their terms and conditions of employment. (See administrative leave, ghost workers)
Accrued Leave
(See earned leave).
Accumulation Pension
(see Defined Contribution Pension)
Acquired Rights)
(see Transfer of Undertakings)
Actuary
A specialist adviser with training in the calculation of risk and premiums for life assurance and pensions. May be a member of a professional association of actuaries. Most pension plan trustees or supervisory boards engage actuarial advisers.
Additionality
In the context of net employment effects in labor market programs, additionality is the net increase in jobs created at partial equilibrium level, i.e. it is the total number of subsidised jobs, less deadweight, substitution and displacement.
Administrative Leave
Employees are placed on administrative leave when they remain formally employed with the establishment but are not required to report to work. Administrative leave can be unpaid, or partially or fully paid.
Adverse Selection
Adverse selection arises in labor market programs because by providing protection against the interruption of earnings due to job loss or redundancy, these programs can also have negative side effects. For example when severance pay is offered to all, the difficulty is that managers may not be able to distinguish between the best and worst employees. Those who are most willing to take severance may be those who know that they are most likely to succeed outside the enterprise - telecommunications engineers from a state owned telecommunications company for example, aware of job offers from the fast growing cellular industry. There is information asymmetry (a difference in the information possessed by the parties); managers may not be able to target severance programs at the most appropriate employees. Adverse selection is sometimes referred to as "the lemon problem". One popular example is the second-hand car market, where sellers know whether or not their car is a "lemon" (i.e. performs badly) but where buyers can't easily tell the quality of any car. Because owners of the best cars are less likely to sell them, at any given price there are likely to be more "lemon" cars entering the market than would otherwise be expected.
Allowances
Rewards other than base pay. These may be monetary or in-kind. These can be provided as part of the employment contract (e.g. transportation, housing, meals, telephone, travel, cost-of-living), or can be provided on a non-contractual basis. (See also personal emoluments).
Arbitration
Process whereby an independent body or person determines a grievance or dispute by imposing a binding settlement. In industrial arbitration a tribunal with legal authority may have powers of compulsory arbitration as well as offering voluntary arbitration.
Balanced Scorecard
A management instrument that translates an organization's mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures to provide a framework for strategic measures and management. The scorecard measures organizational performance across several perspectives: financial, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth.
Base Pay
The salary or wages that every employee receives regularly (usually fortnightly or monthly) by virtue of being on the payroll. Base pay is usually linked to an employee's position and uniform across similar positions. The base wage is often cited to compare wages in the public and private sectors. It is, however, only one component of total rewards.
Baseline data
Initial collection of data to establish a basis for comparison.
Benchmark
A standard or point of reference used in measuring and/or judging quality or value.
Benchmarking
The process of continuously comparing and measuring an organization against business leaders and best practices anywhere in the world to gain information that will help the organization take action to improve its performance.
Bond
A certificate evidencing a debt on which the issuer promises to pay the holder a specified amount of interest for a specified length of time and to repay the loan on its maturity.
Book Value
The value of a share of common stock calculated by subtracting all liabilities from total assets and dividing the result by the number of outstanding common shares. Also the current value of equipment and other capital assets after deducting from their acquisition cost all accumulated depreciation. Book value may be very different from market value, i.e., the price that may be obtained for a share or a capital asset from a willing buyer.
Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)
A form of investment financing used in some PPI programs whereby a private contractor (usually a manufacturer of equipment, an investor group, a foreign operating company, or a consortium of all three) finances and builds an infrastructure facility in exchange for permission to operate the facility for a fixed period, charges customers for use of these facilities, and retains revenues to cover the cost of investment (build) and service operation (operate). On an agreed date, the contractor transfers title and operational responsibility of the facilities back to the owner (e.g. government) thereby completing the arrangement between the two parties. The contractor is entitled to keep any revenues in excess of costs but also assumes the risk that revenues will not cover costs. Build-Lease-Transfer (BLT), Build-Own-Operate (BOO); Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT); Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO), and Rehabilitate-Operate- Transfer (ROT) are variations on this approach.
Cadre
A group of employees having some common or unifying relationship. For example, a cadre of telecommunications engineers, or a cadre of employees of the same grade or age group.
Capability Statement
Capability statement is a document describing a consultancy's expertise and experience: also known as Statement of Qualifications.
Casual Employment
Casual workers are engaged on an ad hoc basis by employers without regular hours or a wage contract; typically they also have lower levels of social protection rights than full-time permanent workers. Many people employed on this basis are self-employed. (See informal sector).
Casualization
Casualization of labor refers to a change in the structure of the workforce, in which a higher proportion of workers are engaged on casual employment terms, rather than permanent, full-time employment.
Civil Law
A system of law based on a comprehensive written code (as in France, Mexico, Mozambique for example), in contrast with a common-law system built up through precedent set by individual judicial decisions (as in the UK and US).
Closed Shop
A closed shop is an agreement that all a firm's workers will be members of a trade union.
Collective Bargaining Agreement
A negotiated contract between a legitimate labor organization and an employer concerning wages, allowances, working time, working practices, arbitration, grievance, renegotiation and dispute resolute mechanisms. May be agreed at national or enterprise level, and may have a fixed term at which time it is renegotiated.
Commercialization
Term used to designate changes in a state enterprise's corporate structure, internal organization and management, and rules linking it to the government, with the objective of providing management with the freedoms and incentives needed to run the enterprise along commercial lines.
Concession
A form of legal authorization given to an operator to provide a service, with defined terms and conditions under which the service is to be provided. In PPI, it could be contractual arrangement between the state (or other public entity) and a private operator (called a concessionaire) requiring the latter to build (and finance the construction of) public works, such as a telecommunications network, a road, or water supply system, in the general interest. In exchange, the state grants the concessionaire the right to operate the infrastructure for a specified period time and at its own risk as well as to charge users. Other forms of concessions include licences to provide a public service on the basis of existing infrastructure and mining extraction rights.
Conciliation
The process by which an independent body attempts to facilitate the resolution of a grievance or dispute by assisting the parties to reach and accept a solution by mutual, voluntary agreement.
Contract
A legally enforceable agreement, either written or oral, that creates legally binding or enforceable obligations on some or all parties. Contract law is the legal regime that applies to contracts.
Contracting Out
When an organisation (government or a firm) transfers the supply or operation of a function to a contractor for a specified period of time, and with specified obligations, but without relinquishing program responsibility or accountability.
Contribution Arrears (Pensions)
Where either the employee or the employer has failed to transfer contributions into the pension plan in accordance with either legislation or pension plan rules.
Contribution Holiday (Pensions)
In a defined benefit pension the actuary will estimate the rate of overall contributions needed to fund the benefits over the next few years. If the required rate is at or less than the rate being contributed by employees, then it may be judged that there is no need for the employer to contribute for a certain time.
Contribution Rate
The contribution rate is usually defined as the amount that the employee contributes into a contributory pension plan, calculated as a percentage of the employee's wage. The definition of wage can vary between pensions. It will always be at least the employee's base wage and in the more generous pension plans it may include irregular payments such as overtime, bonuses etc. Many pensions require both the employer and the employee to contribute (contributory pensions) but some, usually for executives and sometimes for civil servants, only require the employer to contribute (non-contributory). The actuarially required contribution rate may be much higher, however, and is the rate required (all other things being equal) to meet the predicted future obligations predicted on the basis of reasonable assumptions of workforce demographic trends.
Contributory pensions
Contributory pensions are those where the employee has to make a contribution. Some pensions (particularly where there are tax advantages for the employer) may be non-contributory.
Corporation
A legal entity created by or under the laws of a state. Normally classified either a public corporation, created and owned by the state or another public body, or as a private corporation, created by private persons for private purposes.
Corporatization
The legal transformation of a state-owned enterprise, public enterprise or business asset into a public corporation organized under and subject to company law, and with a shareholding structure. Corporatization is often the first step in the privatization of a state-owned enterprise, and is essential if it is privatised through the sale of shares. (Sometimes confused with commercialization or privatization)
Cost-Benefit Analysis
A technique of economic analysis used to compare the cost of carrying out a particular investment with the benefits to be derived from it, both costs and benefits being assessed over the life of the investment. It is used in connection with deciding whether an investment is worth undertaking, or to compare alternative investments. Results are commonly expressed in terms of net present value or of rate of return.
Cream Skimming / Creaming
In a redeployment program, program administrators might prefer to selectively recruit applicants who are most likely to do well on a training course. This behavior is a potential bias that evaluators of programs recognize. More generally, creaming refers to a business situation in which market suppliers can selectively choose to service only the more profitable areas (i.e., the "cream" of the market), for example, high-volume, lower-cost segments, while ignoring areas which are less profitable.
Cross-subsidization
The practice of using surplus revenues generated from one product or service to support another.
Deadweight Loss
In Active Labor Market Programs, deadweight loss arises where the job would have gone to the same person, or another member of the targeted group, even in the absence of the policy. For example, if a redundant worker signs up for a training course that he or she would have paid anyway without a government subsidy or stipend; or if a firm taking on an unemployed person that they would have hired anyway then finds itself eligible for a recruitment subsidy. Hence the policy has had no effect on the firm's hiring decision and is a pure windfall gain to the firm or the individual and a loss to the government. In redeployment programs, some individuals who find jobs through the program may have found jobs even in the absence of these services. The larger the deadweight loss, the smaller the programs' net effect. Estimates of the deadweight loss can be made by interviewing program recipients and asking what they would have done if the program had not been available to them.
Defined Contribution (DC) Pension
A form of pension where the benefit provided at retirement, or earlier death or disability, is the sum of the actual contributions made plus the interest and gains that have been earned through the investment of these contributions. Unlike a defined benefit pension, the benefit is not pre-determined and is totally dependent upon the level of contributions and the rate of investment return. These pensions provide the contributor with a sum of money that the contributor then has to plan how to use to meet his or her financial needs in retirement. Defined contribution pensions are, by definition, fully funded pensions. Also called accumulation or money purchase pensions.
Defined Benefit (DB) Pension
A form of pension; also called final salary pensions, fixed or guaranteed benefit pensions. In these pensions, the pension fund promises to pay the contributor a benefit that can be pre-determined. It is usually a certain percentage of the contributor's actual salary at or close to retirement for each month or year that the contributor has contributed to the pension. Most public sector pensions are of this type, and will pay long serving employees between 50% and 70% of their actual, or very close to actual, final pre-retirement salary. In addition many public pensions also allow a lump sum that is often subject to preferential tax treatment.
Demonopolization
The process of undoing or breaking up a monopoly. (See monopoly).
Deregulation
The removal, relaxation or liberalization of government regulation of economic activities; specific removal of a regulation or regulations governing a service or provider. The deregulated service or provider is principally subject to the dictates of the marketplace.
Displacement Effect
Displacement occurs when a firm uses a subsidy to gain market share from competitors. The subsidised firm hires additional workers that it would not have hired without the subsidy. However, the firm's competitors hire correspondingly fewer workers (or lay off existing workers), so that, taking the firms together, the effect is the same as for substitution. In effect, there is a reduction or "crowding out" of regular employment elsewhere in the economy through competition in the markets for goods and services. The firm with subsidized workers increases output but displaces output among firms without subsidized workers
Dislocated / Displaced Worker
A worker separated from their employment, at the same time as the permanent or temporary removal of that employment position from the organisation. (See redundancy).
Downsizing
A planned measure by an employer to reduce the numbers of employees in the organization. Sometimes also used to refer to the disposal of unwanted subsidiaries, operating units or assets. (See redundancy)
Due Diligence
A term used to describe the reasonable investigations to be made by officers of a company in order to obtain sufficiently accurate and complete information as needed to undertake a corporate transaction.
Dummy Variable
In regression analysis a binary variable (with a value of zero or one) depending on whether a certain factor applies to each of a series of observations. For instance, dummies can be used to account for qualitative factors in a regression, such as a gender dummy (male or female), location (urban or rural), program participation (yes no) or policy (policy-on, policy-off).
Earned Leave
Leave which has been earned (in accordance with conditions of employment) and not taken at the time of severance.
Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
A mechanism by which employees acquire a share in the stock of the company where they work. ESOP's are sometimes used to create an interest from organized labor in the privatization of a state enterprise.
End-of-service / Termination Benefits
Benefits payable to employees on normal retirement, as defined in legislation or in terms and conditions of employment
Ex-gratia Payment
In voluntary departure programs, the employer can offer a discretionary amount, almost invariably in excess of the legal minimum for termination of service. This ex-gratia amount provides a financial incentive for workers to voluntarily declare themselves redundant; for employers it can provide a mechanism for simplification and quickening of a downsizing program if voluntary departure arrangements can avoid the regulations that applied to forced compulsory departure.
Final Salary Pension
(See Defined Benefit Pension).
Funded Pensions
In a funded pension, there is an asset allocated today against every future obligation. These pension plans do not therefore rely on intergenerational transfers like the pay-as-you-go pensions, and should be financially sustainable. A fully-funded plan would mean that there are enough assets to meet all obligations. (By definition, defined contribution pensions are fully funded; defined benefit pensions, however, may be less than fully funded as they are never likely to have to meet their obligations on any given day).
Ghost Workers
Workers whose names are listed on the payroll as receiving salaries, but who do not exist or no longer work for the organisation. Their personal emoluments and other benefits maybe captured by corrupt third parties.
Gratuity
In the context of redundancy, gratuity is a form of social protection payment given as compensation for loss of an employee's income due to enforced redundancy. (This is distinct from the usual dictionary definition, which suggests the idea of a gift or present).
Hiring Freeze
A temporary cessation of recruitment by an employer. May apply to all of the operation, or only to certain locations or certain cadres.
Human Resource Planning
Human Resource Planning is the systematic and continuing process of analysing an organisation's human resource needs under changing conditions and developing personnel policies appropriate to the longer term effectiveness of the organisation.
Indexation (Pensions)
Indexation - the amount by which a preserved benefit is increased (it also applies to the pension paid to a former contributor in a defined benefit pension). It is most common to use the rate of inflation as the measure of indexation although the most generous pension plans use movements in wages, and others use a mixture of inflation and wage movements.
Industry Restructuring
Altering the relationship between organizations within a sector (possibly including dividing single organizations into multiple parts).
Informal Sector
Typically refers to self-employed workers who are engaged in small-scale labour-intensive occupations such as construction, tailoring, food preparation, trading, shoe-repairing, etc. In some large countries in Latin America for example the informal sector can exceed 50% of the labor force. These workers may, however, be regarded as unemployed or under-employed because their work is not fully captured in national employment statistics.
Infrastructure
Those facilities and services in an economy that facilitate the flow of goods and services between buyers (consumers) and sellers (producers). Examples are telecommunications (telephones, cable, radio) and transport (roads, railways, harbours, airports) sectors, water, sanitation, sewerage, oil and gas pipelines, electricity power generation and transmission systems. These facilities may be regarded as a pre-requisite for economic growth in an economy, and often involve elements of monopoly.
In-kind Benefits
As part of an employee's total compensation, in kind benefits include non-monetary rewards such as health insurance, free transportation, housing, meals, and travel.
ILO
International Labour Organisation of the United Nations. Based in Geneva.
Job Club
A group of workers who meet together regularly as part of their job search efforts. Usually facilitated by an outplacement or job search assistance program.
Job Search Assistance (JSA)
Preparing the job seeker for finding new employment through resume (CV) preparation, development of a job search strategy, interview training, occupational information, and improving access to contacts with employers.
Job Sharing
Where a single job is shared between two or (less commonly) more employees, each of who work part-time in the job.
Joint-Stock Company
A company having a joint stock or capital that is divided into units of ownership interest, such as shares which may be transferred without consent of the other shareholders.
Labor Contract
(See collective bargaining agreement).
Labor Intermediation Services
Labor intermediation services are services intended to improve the speed and quality of the match between available jobs and job seekers. In this way, such services "intermediate" between labor supply and demand. The principal clients of such services are unemployed workers, under employed workers and firms seeking new employees.
Labour Hoarding
When the firms have invested heavily in the hiring and training of a worker they will be reluctant to dismiss that worker during an economic downturn. As a defensive mechanism, the firm will thus attempt to retain or hoard workers in whom firm-specific investments have been made. Thus at the onset of a recession labour input is not simultaneously cut back with output and the labour utilization rate falls accordingly. With the upturn, increase output can similarly be achieved without simultaneous increase in labour input, again measured in terms of employees, because the supply of labour services is increased simply by raising the utilization rate of already employed labour. In both cases there will be a lagged adjustment of employment to changes in output.
Labour Pools
Commonly seen in the ports sector, where the uncertainty of ship arrival and berthing times requires for a flexible work force in addition to the permanent workforce. Members of dock labor pools are usually registered, have a level of safety training, and employers generally have agreed that other workers of a casual nature will not work in the port areas. As ports have become more machinery intensive (e.g. through containerisation and palletization) the proportion of the work force in the labor pools has tended to reduce. Some developing countries ports do, however, retain sizeable dock labor pools.
Labour Turnover (percentage)
The number of employees who leave an organisation, as a percentage of the total number of employees. It is defined in terms of a time period (monthly, annual) and may exclude exceptional levels of involuntary departure (e.g. as a result of a downsizing program).
Last In - First Out (LIFO)
teIn the context of redundancy, the principle that the most recently recruited employees would be the first to be made redundant. LIFO systems are sometimes defined in national legislation or in labor contracts.xt
Lay-off
Has different meanings and applications:
(1) Colloquially, many people understand the term "lay-off" or "laid-off" to mean permanent and compulsory redundancy.
(2) A lay-off can also be taken to mean a dismissal plus the prospect of re-engagement when more work is available (i.e. temporary administrative leave). In this latter case, collective bargaining or national regulations might define payments, recall terms, or worker benefits during lay-offs.
(3) Lay-off may also have a legal or procedural meaning, which will vary depending on the jurisdiction and the relevant documentation.
Minimum Wages
In general, minimum wages are those fixed under national minimum wage legislation, but may also be negotiated through tripartite (government, organised labor, employers) wage bargaining arrangements for a particular sector.
Money Purchase Pension
(See Defined Contribution Pension).
Monopoly
A market structure with only one firm selling a given good or service and no other firms selling closely related goods or services.
Moral Hazard
The presence of incentives for individuals to act in ways that incur costs that they do not have to bear. In the context of labor adjustment, managers in over-staffed state-owned enterprises may be less willing to restrict hiring or to undertake difficult downsizing programs, if they believe that government will - sooner or later - promote and fund the costs of a severance program will ameliorate the overstaffing problem. Similarly if labor programs are expected to finance the cost for payment of arrears of unpaid salaries or unpaid pension contributions, they create disincentives - and reduce the urgency - for managers to tackle the problems of arrears themselves. A common example of moral hazard is insurance: once someone has insured their property they have less incentive to protect it as carefully as before.
Multi-employer Pension
A pension where all relevant public sector agencies participate in one pension for that sector. For example, there may be a pension for all mine workers, another for transport workers, another pension for all health sector workers. Alternatively there may only one pension for all public sector workers, or all state owned enterprise workers.
OECD
Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, an inter-governmental organization that is a forum for the industrialized countries.
Pay-as-you-go (PAYG or PAYGO) Pension
Pay-as-you-go (PAYG or PAYGO) - many national pensions are PAYG, where the outgoings to today's pensioners are paid for by the contributions of today's workers and employers. PAYG pensions are essentially unfunded pension plan, meaning that the plan accepts the responsibility to provide retirement benefits to participants, but does not set aside adequate moneys today to meet future obligations. Most public sector pensions have been unfunded, PAYG, plans. The PAYG system is based on a philosophy of "intergenerational solidarity" where today's workers support older workers (see System Dependency Ratio). With pensioners living longer, current contribution rates are too low in many pensions, and the danger is that these pensions are already, or will become, financially unsustainable and collapse. The opposite of the PAYG approach is the funded pension.
Pension Fund Deficit
Pension fund deficit - in a defined benefit pension this is calculated as the amount of shortfall in the assets of the pension fund on a given day compared to the cost of meeting all fund liabilities on that day.
Pensions
Pensions are collective savings products designed to provide the fund participants with an income in retirement. Usually there are tax privileges attached to the contributions that are paid in by both participants and the fund income that accumulates. Benefits are usually regarded as income and taxed accordingly. Pensions differ from other investments in that they are granted tax privileges, and that they can only be redeemed under pre-determined conditions, usually a minimum retirement age or earlier death or disability and that they are operated for the benefit of all participants on a parity basis.
Personal Emoluments
Term commonly used in a public service employment context. Comprises base pay plus monetary allowances for items such as transportation, housing, meals, telephone, travel, cost-of-living. (See also: Total Rewards)
Preserved Benefit
Preserved benefit - this is the amount that a former contributor is entitled to if they cease to be a fund participant before reaching retirement age or other pre-determined circumstances. Some pensions require benefits to be preserved in the pension, and only paid out at retirement. Other will require the compulsory transfer of the preserved benefit out of the pension as a lump sum on the day the employee ceases to be a contributor.
Private Company
A company owned by private parties (individuals or legal entities), and not by the state or another public body. A company with mixed ownership (some private and some public owners)may by considered a private company if the public sector owns less than a controlling interest in it. A private company is to be contrasted with a public enterprise or state-owned enterprise, which are owned and controlled by a state or other public entity.
Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI)
The introduction of the private sector into the provision of some aspect of infrastructure delivery or services.
Private Sector Participation (PSP)
Introduction of the private sector into a particular area of the economy.
Privatization
The transfer to private ownership and control of assets or enterprises that were previously under public ownership and control.
Productivity
Output per unit of input employed. Changes in labor productivity are measured by an index of output divided by an index of person-hours.
Program Management
Program management implies the management of a number of different projects. Here are two definitions:
- The co-ordinated management of a portfolio of projects to achieve a set of business or policy objectives
- The planning and monitoring of a number of simultaneous related projects
Project Management
The management of an activity (a project) which has a discrete start and end, in terms of time, cost and quality
Prospectus
A legal document that describes securities being offered for sale to the public and which must be prepared in conformity with requirements of applicable securities regulations.
Provident Funds
Provident funds (PF) are a particular form of retirement savings. They may be mandatory and, like defined contribution pensions, pay out the amount accumulated as a lump sum on retirement or other predetermined circumstances. Participants may be able to receive part in cash and part as an annuity. Typically, equal contributions are made by both the employer and the employee.
Public Enterprise
Enterprise owned by the public sector. Often synonymous with state-owned enterprise (SOE), but this somewhat broader term sometimes includes, as well as SOEs themselves, enterprises owned by state-owned enterprises, municipalities, local governments, public corporations, and other public bodies.
Randomization Bias
This refers to bias in random-assignment experimental evaluations. This bias arises because the behaviour of individuals in an experiment will be different because of the experiment itself and not because of the goal of the experiment. Individuals in an experiment know that they are part of a treatment group and may act differently, as could individuals in the control group.
Real Rate of Return (pensions)
In a pensions context, the real rate of return is the amount by which the actual investment return earned by the pension fund exceeds the rate of inflation.
Redundancy
Involuntary job losses due to a reduction in manpower requirements on the part of employers. Redundancy arises when employees are dismissed under the following circumstances:
- Where the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was employed; or
- Where the employer has ceased, or intends to cease, to carry on the business in the place where the employee was employed; or
- Where the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease and diminish; or
- Where the requirements of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind, in the place where they were employed, have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish.
Such reductions in the workforce may involve either the complete closure of plants or the scaling down of the size of the work-force in a plant. While some employees will have been declared redundant through no fault or choice of their own, where substantial severance pay is offered some employees may elect to be declared redundant.
Regulator
Individual or agency that oversees a sector - may oversee the economic, technical and legal aspects or some subset of them.
Request for Proposals (RFP)
The documentation sent to potential consultants or bidders. It comprises a letter of invitation, the terms of reference, and information about the format for proposals and the timetable and form of the evaluation process.
Reservation Wage
The minimum wage that a worker searching for a job in the labor market will accept, based on his or her expectations.
Retrenchment
Termination of employment by the employer for reasons other than normal retirement, disciplinary action, or ill health. (See redundancy, downsizing)
Revolving Door
A term used to characterize the situation when workers leave employment (e.g. through a labor program) but are merely rehired later into the same organisation: "Out of one door; back in through another".
Selection Bias
Recognized by evaluators as program outcomes are influenced by unobservables not controlled for in an evaluation process (e.g. individual ability). Such factors can arise as a by-product of the selection process into programs where individuals "most likely to succeed" are selected into the program. (See "Cream-skimming").
Semi-autonomous Agencies
Semi-autonomous agencies can be organizations responsible for executing government programs, reporting to ministries or to members of government under the day-to-day supervision of a ministry. The relevant minister/secretary generally defines their objectives. Their funding sources can include some revenue earnings. They are given some form of managerial autonomy, and are often staffed with public employees whose status and/or employment conditions differ from general employment rules. Most function under public law (when relevant). Semi-autonomous agencies can also be statutory commissions, independent regulators, or other bodies with a separate legislative existence.
Severance Benefits
Benefits payable to employees who lose their jobs as a result of downsizing or retrenchment. These may include both statutory and ex-gratia discretionary payments. The existence of severance pay reduces the risks associated with job loss and transfer of employment by workers, and can be seen as facilitating the adjustment of the labor force in the face of economic, social and business changes.
Short-time Working
A mechanism in which a worker's contract of employment continues, but with fewer hours or days than normal, for proportionately less pay, because of a shortage of work.
Single Employer Pension
A pension specially set up for employees for a particular organization.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders are persons or groups who are affected by or can affect the outcome of a project, program or an organization's activities. These can include workers, customers, investors, affected communities, local organizations and NGOs and government authorities. Stakeholders can also include politicians, commercial and industrial enterprises, labor unions, academics, religious groups, national social and environmental public sector agencies, and the media.
State Owned Enterprise (SOE)
A firm founded on the initiative of the state, majority-owned and controlled and managed by the state; especially central government.
Substitution Effect
Substitution means that subsidized or program-supported workers (e.g. workers who have been on a training program) replace unsubsidized workers. A worker hired in a subsidized job is substituted for an unsubsidized worker who otherwise would have been hired. The net employment effect is thus zero.
Supervisory Board (pensions)
In countries with legal traditions other than common law, pension trustee provisions may not apply. Here the control of the pension rests with a supervisory board. Different countries have different legal structures applying to the supervisory board but generally they are not dissimilar to the principles of trust law.
System Dependency Ratio
System dependency ratio - the percentage of people of working age who are supporting those who are pensioners.
Teledensity
Number of main fixed network telephone lines per 100 inhabitants. Total teledensity refers to the sum of the number of fixed lines and mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants.
Terms of Reference (ToR)
Detailed description of the tasks that consultants will be required to undertake, the range of deliverables, and the timetable.
Total Compensation
Personal emoluments plus in-kind benefits and allowances such as health insurance, transportation, meals, or travel.
Total Rewards
Total compensation plus non-contractual/ intangible rewards and allowances such as job security, prestige, trips, social privileges, and future expectations such as pension or anticipated housing or land grants. See http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/civilservice/agency.htm for a comprehensive analysis of public sector reward structures.
Trade Union
An organization of employees, formed for the purpose of collective bargaining with employers over wages, hours, conditions of service, job security, and manning levels.
Transfer of Undertakings
National legislation often sets out the treatment of employees if an undertaking is transferred from one employer to another (e.g. during a privatization or concession). Often the terms of employment contracts have to be taken over by the receiving employer (the transferee) and there is no break in continuity of service (and hence rights to pensions etc). The rights acquired by the employee are then preserved intact, and there is no need for the transferee to offer new employment contracts.
Transparent
Everyone has access to the same information about the process in question.
Treatment and Control Group
In evaluation, program beneficiaries are the "treatment" group. In an evaluation, their outcomes are compared with a "control" group of non-participants.
Trustees
Many pension funds are managed on a day-to-day basis by trustees. The concept of trust is one found in common law jurisdictions whereby a group acts on behalf of all other (in a pension fund's case) contributors and, in a defined benefit pension, pensioners. The trustees must act without favor of any individual and take collective responsibility for the decisions they take. Common law trust pensions apply the prudent man philosophy i.e. the Trustees take decisions on applying the logic of the average person. Trustees can be sued if they do not take decisions in accordance with the fund's rules (in common law jurisdictions - the Trust Deed) or they take decisions that are imprudent. Trustees should usually take decisions on the basis of professional advice.
Unfunded Pension Liabilities
Unfunded pension liabilities - these refer to the liability of the fund to meet pension obligations and promises in future that are not matched by assets.
Utility
Company or organization that provides electrical, gas, water or sewerage services to the public.
Vesting Scale
In a pension the vesting scale - this is defined as the portion of the employer's contributions which is paid to the contributor if the contributor ceases to be a pension plan participant before having contributed for a given period or otherwise being eligible to receive a benefit. A plan is said to be "vested" when there is a prescribed service period to receive a refund of the employer contributions in full. "Fully vested" or "immediate vesting" means that there is no minimum period before the employer's contributions are refunded in full.
Some sources drawn on in developing definitions for this glossary include:
- "Administrative & Civil Service Reform" - World Bank Web Site: http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/civilservice/glossary.htm
- Borjas, George. 2002. Labor Economics. Second (International) Edition. Singapore: McGrawHill
- Mazza, Jacqueline. 2001. Labor Intermediation Services: A Review for Latin American and Caribbean Countries. Paper Presented at a Regional Technical Consultation Seminar on Labor Issues, Panama, November 2001. Washington DC: Inter-American Development Bank
- Pearce, David W. ed. 1992. The MIT Dictionary of Modern Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press
- PPIAF. 2001. Toolkit: a Guide for Hiring and Managing Advisors for Private Participation in Infrastructure. Washington DC: World Bank.
- Schmid, Günther, Jacqueline O'Reilly, and Klaus Schömann, eds. 1997. International Handbook of Labour Market Policy and Evaluation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.