This morning, marks the launch of the new EU Skills Panorama - brought to you by the European Commission and powered by Cedefop. IER is pleased to be a part of a Consortium supporting Cedefop by providing data analysis and intelligence on skills and labour markets for the new Skills Panorama. This consortium is composed of Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini, Cambridge Econometrics, RAND Europe and the University of Warwick’s Institute for Employment Research.

In the Skills Panorama launch video, James Calleja, Director of Cedefop, highlights that the Skills Panorama "combines labour market data and expert knowledge with powerful technology that enables you to surf Europe's skills landscape for information and data to find intelligence and evidence to enable informed decisions and choices about skills in Europe." The Skills Panorama "places the best available information on skills and the labour market in Europe at your fingertips".

The new website will provide a more comprehensive and user-friendly central access point for information and intelligence on skill needs in occupations and sectors across Europe. Data can be explored by skills themes, sectors, occupations and countries. It is intended primarily for policy-makers and experts, providing them with a tool for developing evidence-based education and training and planning policy, including measures to tackle labour market mismatches.

See the launch video and the new Skills Panorama at: http://skillspanorama.cedefop.europa.eu/launchevent/.

For further details of IER's involvement contact: Terence Hogarth or Lynn Gambin

On 26 November, Business in the Community published its report Destiny should not be determined by demography which considers the impact of school-business partnerships on young people’s employability, as well as the effects of such partnerships on schools and businesses. The report is based on research carried out by Terence Hogarth and Lynn Gambin at the Institute for Employment Research which aimed to assess the impact of employer-engagement activities, the uplift of employability skills and added-value impact on pupils of the Business Class programme. This research was carried out over the past two years in conjunction with Education and Employers Research.

The full evaluation report can be downloaded from http://www.bitc.org.uk/programmes/business-class/business-class-evaluation.

On the 1 December at 11.00 (CET) Cedefop will launch the new Skills Panorama website. Skills Panorama turns labour market data and information into useful, accurate and timely intelligence that informs policy-makers about skills and jobs in Europe. The new website will provide a more comprehensive and user-friendly central access point for information and intelligence on skill needs in occupations and sectors across Europe. The new Skills Panorama is intended primarily for policy-makers and experts. It provides them with a tool for developing evidence-based education and training and planning policy, including measures to tackle labour market mismatches.

Skills Panorama is brought to you by the European Commission and is powered by Cedefop. The Consortium composed of Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini, Cambridge Econometrics, RAND Europe and the University of Warwick’s Institute for Employment Research supported Cedefop by providing data analysis and intelligence on skills and labour markets for the new Skills Panorama. Register for the online event and learn more about the new Skills Panorama. For further details of IER's involvement contact: Terence Hogarth or Lynn Gambin

Like Skills Panorama on Facebook and follow it on Twitter and on YouTube.

This free workshop is being convened by Universities UK in collaboration with the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick. The workshop is intended for participants interested in using labour market information to support their work in UK universities and higher education more generally. It will explore how labour market information (LMI) can support the work of universities and introduce the LMI for All project funded by UKCES. LMI for All is an online data portal which provides access to existing sources of high quality, reliable LMI. The data is made available via an Application Programming Interface (API) for use in websites and applications. For more information on the workshop and to register go to the workshop webpage.

Professor Chris Warhurst is the Director of the Institute for Employment Research. He said: "The good news from today’s figures is that unemployment continues to fall and more people are in work. In fact Christmas present looks good. Almost half a million jobs have been created in the UK this year. The employment rate has risen to 73%, continuing an upward trend that started in 2011. Unemployment has fallen to 6%, this time the continuation of a downward trend. And the UK’s unemployment rate is far lower than the EU average (6% vs 10%). It seems like glad tidings for UK workers therefore. FInd out more at the Warwick newsroom.