The small but affluent nation of New Malusidia (NM) faces a serious

Question

The small but affluent nation of New Malusidia (NM) faces a serious shortage of manpower in the private sector. As a result, about 30% of the workforce in NM is comprised of foreign workers holding work permits. Some of the foreign workers are skilled; others are unskilled. To alleviate the labor shortage, the government of NM plans to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years.

To determine whether the plan is likely to achieve its goal, it would be most useful to know which of the following?

(A) Whether the non-working dependents of unskilled work permit holders are permitted to reside in NM during the work permit holder’s term of employment.
(B) Whether NM requires that permanent residents who intend to apply for citizenship in NM renounce allegiance to any other country in which they hold citizenship.
(C) Whether permanent residents of NM are disqualified from applying for certain jobs in the public sector.
(D) Whether the government of NM plans to introduce a new migration scheme allowing skilled foreigners who have never worked in NM to apply for permanent residence.
(E) Whether the average duration of gainful employment in NM is greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits.

sayan640 · Answer

Goal :- To alleviate the labor shortage
Conclusion :- The government of NM plans to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years.

Option E states that :- Whether the average duration of gainful employment in NM is greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits.

Using Variance test , 
 If  YES  i.e the average duration of gainful employment in NM is greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits , then t he conclusion cant be derived and subsequently the goal cant be achieved  as if the average  duration of grainful employment is lesser / nil among the people who hold skilled work permits , then  the plans to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years  will NOT work ( These intended people for whom the government is making the plan will not satisfy the criteria ) .

If NO, i.e  the average duration of gainful employment in NM is NOT greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits  i.e both the foreigners who are permanent residents and  the foreigners ,who hold skilled work permits , have similar average years of gainful employment , 
then extending the offer to those foreigners , who only hold the skilled work permits,  will work and they will eventually become the permenent residents . And, the labor shortage in the country will also be alleviated.  The conclusion and the goal can be followed.

E is the answer.

Kindly check,  MartyMurray   KarishmaB   GMATinsight

sherlocked221B · Answer

Hello!  b_sudharsan ,  KarishmaB

How to rule out option C, here?

If the nation NM is facing a shortage of manpower in the private sector and if permanent residents of NM are not disqualified from applying for certain jobs in the public sector; there's a possibility that people would apply for public sector and shortage would still remain in private sector, right?

bronaugust · Answer

Hi,   jaswanth_ss  !

Let us deploy    IMS's four-step technique    to solve this question.

STEP #1  ->   IDENTIFY THE QUESTION TYPE

To identify the question type, we need to read the question stem. The stem, 'To determine whether the plan is likely to achieve its goal, it would be most useful to know which of the following?' indicates an  evaluate  question.

Now that the question type is identified, let us proceed to the second step.

STEP #2  ->   DECONSTRUCT THE ARGUMENT

In an evaluate question, it is a must to deconstruct the argument by figuring out the conclusion and premise(s). Since, we are to check whether the plan is likely to achieve its goal, the plan itself becomes the conclusion.

CONCLUSION:    The government of NM plans to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years.
  PREMISES:    -> NM faces a serious shortage of manpower in the private sector. 
                    -> About 30% of the workforce in NM is comprised of foreign workers holding work permits.
                    -> Some of the foreign workers are skilled; others are unskilled.

Now that the argument is deconstructed, let us proceed to the third step.

STEP #3  ->   FRAME A SHADOW ANSWER

To come up with a shadow answer, we must know what the right answer should do. In this question, the correct answer must help us check whether the government's plan of offering permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years will help it achieve its goal of alleviating the labor shortage it faces.

SHADOW ANSWER:   An option that, when the premises are taken into consideration, helps us check whether or not the government's plan will help it achieve its goal of alleviating labor shortage.

Now that we have a shadow answer, let us proceed to the final step.

STEP #4  ->   ELIMINATE INCORRECT OPTIONS

Answer options that do not match the shadow answer can be eliminated.

(A) Whether the non-working dependents of unskilled work permit holders are permitted to reside in NM during the work permit holder’s term of employment. -   NOT A MATCH   -  If non-working dependents of unskilled work permit holders are permitted to reside in NM during the work permit holder’s term of employment, will we be able to check whether offering permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years will help the government achieve its goal? No! Any info about unskilled work-permit holders is irrelevant, for the argument concerns itself with skilled work permit holders.  -   ELIMINATE

(B) Whether NM requires that permanent residents who intend to apply for citizenship in NM renounce allegiance to any other country in which they hold citizenship. -   NOT A MATCH   -  Again, if permanent residents who intend to apply for citizenship in NM are required to renounce allegiance to any other country in which they hold citizenship, we will still be unable to check whether or not the government's plan of offering permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years will help it achieve its goal of alleviating labor shortage.  -   ELIMINATE

(C) Whether permanent residents of NM are disqualified from applying for certain jobs in the public sector. -   NOT A MATCH   -  The plan is to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years. If permanent residents of NM are actually disqualified from applying for certain jobs in the public sector, they may obviously apply for other jobs in the public sector; they may otherwise apply for jobs in the private sector. And third scenario: They may choose not to work at all! There are various possibilities here, and this info will therefore not be evaluative. Keep in mind that getting disqualified from certain jobs in the public sector does not mean the permanent residents have only the private sector in the picture. Also, if permanent residents of NM are not disqualified from applying for certain jobs in the public sector, they may or may not opt for those very certain jobs. The goal, remember, is to alleviate labor shortage in the private sector, and the answer to this question will not help us check if the government's plan will actually achieve its goal.  -   ELIMINATE

(D) Whether the government of NM plans to introduce a new migration scheme allowing skilled foreigners who have never worked in NM to apply for permanent residence. -   NOT A MATCH   -  Not worried about what the government plans to introduce.  -   ELIMINATE

(E) Whether the average duration of gainful employment in NM is greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits. -   MATCHES THE SHADOW ANSWER   -  If the average duration of gainful employment in NM is greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits, the argument we have is strengthened. It tells us that the plan of offering permanent residence to skilled worker permit holders will most likely help the government alleviate labor shortage. Remember, more skilled workers becoming permanent residents will then lead to an increase in the average duration of gainful employment.   On the other hand, if the average duration of gainful employment in NM is not greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits, the argument is weakened, and one could as well advise the government to not come up with such a plan if its goal is actually to alleviate labor shortage.  -   MARK AND MOVE

Hence, (E) is the correct answer.

bronaugust · Answer

Hi, Oppenheimer1945 ! Happy to connect with you! There could be several reasons you may want a 'better' explanation:> -> You have not grasped the question requirement. -> You have issues with comprehension. -> You have a vocabulary void. -> You brought in your bias while analysing the answer option. I am inclined to believe it is definitely not the last. If it is the second, I should suggest you let me know what you have not understood so I may tailor my response accordingly. If it is the third, I should say you let me know the words that you have not comprehended so I may make use of different words. If it is the first, I should say, 'Please reason', and if you still have not understood what the question requires you to do after having reasoned, feel free to get back to me. I need to know what you are looking for in my explanation, for the word 'better' is subjective. What is 'better' to you may not necessarily be 'better' to me. Looking forward to your response! Always happy to help, by the way!

bronaugust · Answer

Oppenheimer1945 , do go through this explanation and let me know what exactly you find challenging in this question. Understanding your thought-process would help me come up with a tailored response for you.

Now, to begin with, let us ask ourselves a few questions.

What is the government's plan?

The government's plan is to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years.

Why is the government planning to do so?

Because it has a goal in mind: the goal of alleviating the labor shortage. Also, 30% of the workforce in NM is comprised of foreign workers holding work permits. Some of the foreign workers are skilled; others are unskilled.

Let us now ask ourselves one big question!

If the government plans to offer permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years in order to alleviate labor shortage in the private sector, what would it be thinking?

GOVERNMENT'S THINKING  :  Offering permanent residence to any skilled work permit holder who has resided in the country for longer than two years should lead to an increase of manpower, and on account of an increase of manpower, the labor shortage should be alleviated.

The right answer should just help us check if this thinking of the government is valid because if it is not, the plan will simply not work.

(E) talks about average duration of gainful employment in NM.

Before we read further, let us ask ourselves, 'Are we worried about the average duration of gainful employment in NM here?' And remember, this means the average duration of gainful employment in the nation, all sectors included. Well, yes, we are! Let me explain.

Let us say the country has 1000 jobs to offer (all sectors combined). At present, 600 workers are employed, out of which only 100 are employed in the private sector although the sector offers 500 jobs (remember there is a serious shortage of manpower).

This means the private sector is looking to employ 400 people at present.

If the average duration of gainful/profitable employment in NM is 3 months, the 100 workers who are employed at the moment would most likely not be working in 3 months' time unless the government takes measures to ensure people work for a longer duration while ensuring they are gainful.

Now that we know average duration of gainful employment is intricately linked with manpower, we can continue reading answer option (E).

This is what (E) says -> Whether the average duration of gainful employment in NM is greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits.

Bingo! This answer option actually gives us an opportunity to check which category of people is more gainfully employed: Foreigners who are permanent residents or skilled work permit holders!

If the average duration of gainful employment of foreigners who are permanent residents is 10 months and if that of work permit holders is 10 days and if the government offers permanent residence status to any skilled work permit holder, what is likely to happen?

For starters, the skilled worker permit holders will become foreigners with permanent residence status, right?

And if they become permanent residents, what is likely to happen? As per the stated data, they will be gainfully employed for a longer duration, right?

So, making skilled work permit holders permanent residents will ensure that the average duration of gainful employment in the country goes up  ( basic Mathematics here).

If the average duration of gainful employment goes up, it means more people employed profitably for longer duration regardless of the sector; so, will it help the government alleviate labor shortage? Yes! (Because if the average duration was 3 months before and if it is 6 months now, the government has less to worry about shortage of manpower: If all the people left the organisation every 3 months before, now they would do every 6 months, so the government has to worry about getting new resources employed less often than it did before.)

However, and this is a big 'however', if the average duration of gainful employment in NM is NOT greater among foreigners who are permanent residents than it is among foreigners who hold skilled work permits, there is no point in implementing the plan because the average duration of gainful employment may either remain the same or even plummet if the plan is implemented. In other words, the labor shortage is not likely to get alleviated .

Now, let us get back to our question. What were we to do? We were to determine what would be most useful to know to check whether the plan is  likely  to achieve its goal. (There is a reason I have highlighted 'likely'! )

We have established that out of all the options given (refer to my previous explanation), (E) does the best job and helps us check whether labor shortage could be alleviated or not if the plan is implemented.

The small but affluent nation of New Malusidia (NM) faces a serious

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The small but affluent nation of New Malusidia (NM) faces a serious

Prep Toolkit

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