IER News & blogs

Hilda Ragnarsdóttir at IER has joined the Board for Employability and Skills at the Centre for New Midlands, a not-for-profit think tank focused on creating and sharing new ideas to strengthen the West Midlands.

She will be undertaking research and contributing to the conversation on how to reduce economic inactivity, improve employability and address the skill gap in the region.

IER's Dr Jamelia Harris presented early findings from the project "Colonial legacies and the labour market in the English-speaking Caribbean" at the West Indies Economic Conference (WECON) 2026. The conference was held in Kingston, Jamaica and brought together economists working on issues in the Caribbean region.

Dr Sangwoo Lee, Assistant Professor, Institute for Employment Research said "Today's release confirms a labour market in structural transition. Unemployment has risen to 5.2%, its highest since late 2020, even as economic inactivity continued declining to 20.7%. Rather than signalling genuine recovery, this pattern suggests a return to work that an increasingly slack labour market is struggling to absorb, with rising unemployment reflecting insufficient demand to accommodate those re-entering the workforce."

The Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER) is a key partner in ISABEL, a pioneering Horizon Europe project dedicated to managing labour market shifts triggered by the green and digital transitions. Running from November 2024 to November 2027, the project utilises AI-powered analytics to minimise the costs and maximise the benefits of job creation and destruction. Led by Dr Sangwoo LeeLink opens in a new window, the IER team, including Dr Gianni Anelli-LopezLink opens in a new window, Prof Derek BosworthLink opens in a new window, Luke BosworthLink opens in a new window, and Rosie DayLink opens in a new window, is developing robust forecasting methodologies.

A new research paper by IER's Dr. Jamelia Harris has been published in Work Employment and Society. The article analyses how employers and university-educated jobseekers behave when networks are overly used, and connections supersede merit in recruitment. It advances the debate by exploring the effects of networks on how the labour market for the university-educated functions, and how the normalisation of network-based recruitment affects this segment of the labour market.