The Warwick Institute for Employment Research is seeking to fill two professorial posts. Applications are encouraged in any area of IER’s work, though applications in the areas of higher education and graduate labour markets, and employment and social class classification are particularly welcome. The posts are an exciting opportunity to develop and lead a programme of work in one of Europe’s leading institutes for employment research that has a tangible impact on policy in the field. Further details can be found at:http://tinyurl.com/ktzbfdo
IER is offering two PhD Studentships to work on the ESRC-funded project: Precarious pathways to employment for young people? Unpaid, temporary and involuntary part-time work in transitions from education to employment.
We are looking for two enthusiastic Masters graduates with relevant interests in recent labour market history to take up fully funded ESRC PhD studentships, starting in October 2014. The studentships are attached to a research programme that explores the dynamics of transitions from education to work in local, regional and historical contexts during previous economic recessions (specifically the 1930s and the 1980s).
The closing date for applications is 28 May and interviews are to be held on Monday 9 June at the University of Warwick. Click here for full details of the research agenda and the studentships as well as information on how to apply.
A report entitled 'Harnessing European Labour Mobility' was published by the Bertelsmann Stiftung at a launch event in Brussels on 8 April. IER's Anne Green was a member of the International Advisory Board for the project and contributed a short feature to the report on 'The role of short-term moves in intra-EU labour mobility'. It draws, to an extent, on previous research undertaken for the European Commission with Beate Baldauf and David Owen on 'Short-term International Mobility', which is part of a broader portfolio of work on migration and mobility undertaken by researchers at IER.
Statistics and indicators to monitor VET and lifelong learning in European countries
Together with colleagues at SEOR, Erasmus School of Economics University, IER's Lynn Gambin and Terence Hogarth, with assistance from Andrew Holden, have been conducting a study for Cedefop which involves collation and analysis of statistics related to the features and outcomes of vocational education and training (VET) and lifelong learning in Europe. An update to these statistics was published by Cedefop on 29 April.
Higher and further education and skills: review of value added
Lynn Gambin and Terence Hogarth of IER, along with colleagues from Cambridge Econometrics, recently completed a study commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which considered existing approaches and issues encountered in estimating the returns to different forms of learning. The full report for this project, Methodological issues in estimating the value added by higher education, further education and skills: a review of relevant literature, was published on 2 May. The report reviews a number of assumptions underpinning the estimates used by the department and others and makes recommendations for the most appropriate ways of addressing each of the issues in future analysis.
An article on classroom assistants, co-authored by Chris Warhurst, has been published: C. Warhurst, D. Nickson, J. Commander and K. Gilbert (2014) ‘“Role stretch”: assessing the blurring of teaching and non-teaching in the classroom assistant role in Scotland’, British Educational Research Journal, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 170–186.
Recent events
Building Adaptable Local Labour Markets
Anne Green was invited by the OECD to attend the 10th Annual Meeting of the OECD LEED (Local Economic and Employment Development) Forum on Partnerships and Local Development in Stockholm on 24 and 25 April where she was an expert contributor in a Workshop on 'Tackling disadvantage in a time of limited resources'.
Duncan Adam with colleagues John Purcell and Mark Hall presented research findings from their recent project, 'The presence, composition and function of the joint consultative committees', on 28 April. The seminar was organised by the sponsors, Acas, and was attended by a mix of employers' representatives, academic researchers, trades union representatives and Acas staff. The research paper 'Joint consultative committees under the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations: a WERS analysis' is now available.
CASCOT: Occupational Coding in Multi-national Surveys
IER has been engaged in a project within the DASISH (a European Union Coordinated Collaborative Project/Coordination and Support Action) CP/CSA to develop prototype multilingual software that will code national language text to an international classification. The classification selected for this prototype is the International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO 08). The prototype of the software, known as CASCOT, now exists in a multi-lingual version (CASCOT 5.0) in Dutch, French, German, Slovak, Spanish, Italian and Finnish in addition to English.
A workshop was organised by IER at Warwick in Venice on 10 and 11 April to seek the active involvement of experts in occupational classification and coding in testing and fine-tuning the CASCOT software in each of the above-mentioned languages. Participants included both academics and officers from national statistical institutes from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain and the UK. Click here for more on CASCOT.
Participants at work in Warwick’s splendid Venetian venue (Photo courtesy of Dalibor Holly)
Participants at work in Warwick’s splendid Venetian venue (Photo courtesy of Dalibor Holly)