IER News & blogs

Professor Chris Warhurst, Director of IER, was invited to speak at the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Future of Work: AI, good jobs and regional growth. Along with a panel consisting of tech trade bodies, trade unions and community activists, he outlined the opportunities and challenges for employers and English Metropolitan Combined Authorities in boosting productivity through good work and digital technology in regional economies.

As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences, a panel of experts, including IER’s Prof Gill Dix, Dr Emily Erickson, Prof Trine Pernille Larsen and Dr Katharina Sarter, discussed the future of work. The panel shared thoughts on the present and potential futures of work in the face of digital technologies and AI, which have the potential to create and reinforce inequalities or reduce them. Creating and maintaining good, secure, and healthy work will remain a priority, given the rapidly changing context and the inevitable uncertainty that the future holds.

Image Credit: Social Sciences Connect Programme

How do we define a 'bad job'? Moving beyond arbitrary thresholds, a new study published in The Economic and Labour Relations Review applies a novel wellbeing-based methodology to identify bad jobs in South Korea's labour market. Using Korean Working Conditions Survey data (2014-2023), IER's Dr Sangwoo Lee and Emeritus Professor Francis Green (UCL Institute of Education) demonstrate that workers in the bottom decile of job quality experience distinctly larger wellbeing gains when moving above this threshold – providing empirical justification for defining these as 'bad jobs'.

IER is pleased to announce the launch of MAIJobCareLink opens in a new window, an international research project led by IER, examining how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Algorithmic Management (AM) are reshaping job quality and workforce dynamics in long-term care (LTC).

As LTC systems across Europe face mounting pressures from ageing populations and persistent staffing shortages, MAIJobCare investigates whether digital tools, such as automated rostering, recruitment platforms, and performance monitoring, can support better care outcomes and working conditions, or whether they risk intensifying work and surveillance.

IER's Dr Jamelia HarrisLink opens in a new window was an invited panellist for the Institute of Chartered Accountant's of Trinidad and Tobago's 16th annual conference. The conference was held on November 20th and 21st in Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Harris contributed to the panel "The Economics of Trust", where she highlighted the importance of trust in various segments of the economy, including the labour market.