IER News & blogs

Chris Warhurst talked about the social construction of skilled and unskilled work on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed programme with presenter Laurie Taylor and fellow guest, Natasha Iskander of New York University.

Chris argues that skilled and unskilled work are not objective categories, rather, skill has ‘a complex history’, one which has ‘favoured male workers’. Listen to the programme aired on 2 February 2022 on the BBC website. 

Further reading: Warhurst, C., Tilly, C. and Gatta, M. (2017) 'A New Social Construction of Skill' in Buchanan, J., Finegold, D., Mayhew, K. and Warhurst, C. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Skills and Training. Oxford University Press.

Dr Wil Hunt and IER’s Dr Sudipa Sarkar and Professor Chris Warhurst will be presenting the findings of their most recent study in a webinar on the impact of AI on jobs at the organisational level on 16 March 2022, 1:00pm-2:00pm.

Find out more about this event and register here.

Jenny Bimrose, Emeritus Professor at IER, and Tannis Goddard, PhD graduate at IER, have co-authored a new paper as part of an initiative by Future Skills Council, Canada, aimed at promoting the value of career development to post-pandemic recovery.

The paper explores challenges and some possible responses for career development practice in Canada, based on a thorough literature review of relevant international academic and grey literature, author participation in Responsive Career Pathways roundtables, and discussions with two key employees of Canada’s main career development professional associations/bodies.

This Research Note by Wil Hunt, Sudipa Sarkar and Chris Warhurst proposes a methodology based on the use of bespoke employer surveys. Drawing on a new and unique survey of UK business leaders, it illustrates the utility of this approach through the presentation of descriptive findings on the association between introduction of AI and job creation and destruction within organisations.

Both the Prime Minister and Chancellor are promoting 'good jobs' as integral to their vision of a successful future UK economy, post Brexit and net zero carbon. But we haven't heard much from them on good jobs being part of the Levelling Up agenda. Good jobs are not a pick ‘n’ mix option - they should be hardwired into the UK economy, explains Professor Chris Warhurst.