IER News & blogs

Professor Rachel Mulvey will be in Paris all this month, working at INETOP/CNAM - France's national institute for the study of work and career. Rachel is no stranger to CNAM, having taught in 2015 on the ECADOC summer school which brought together doctoral students from across the globe, all doing research on career. She returned last year as examiner on a PhD jury and is both honoured and delighted to be invited back, this time as visiting professor.

In addition to its research and scholarly work, the institute offers Masters programmes in both occupational and career psychology. Rachel will be running workshops on qualitative methods for these students who are now in their dissertation semester - and for doctoral candidates too. She is contributing to European research on 'decent work' led by Valérie Cohen-Scali and Jean-Luc Bernaud. This elaborates themes considered at the UNESCO conference on life design and decent work.Rachel will present findings from the two CEDEFOP studies to colleagues at the institute, showcasing the findings by the French country team (which she led) set in the context of the wider study undertaken with IER colleagues Jenny Bimrose, Alan Brown and Sally-Anne Barnes.

These are critical times for career guidance and counselling in education. The implementation of up-to-date guidance and counselling in education must not be seen as something separated from educational reform. There is a critical tension between progressive and regressive tendencies in both education and careers work. The case for reform requires careful attention leading to innovative solutions.

Professor Paul Edwards will be joining IER as an Honorary Professor. His research career began with the study of workplace industrial relations and industrial conflict. He has subsequently studied new management practices in the workplace and managerial careers, both in the UK and in international comparison. Current research is focusing on small firms and their employment practices, with a particular emphasis on firms run by new migrant to the UK.

Co-edited by IER Director Chris Warhurst, a special issue of Work and Occupations has just been published on ‘Making Jobs Better’. It examines the different actors involved in trying to improve job quality – firms, governments, trade unions and community organisations.

A study by Anne Green, Neil Lee (LSE) and Paul Sissons (Coventry University) demonstrates that the sector which an individual works in has a significant impact on their pay, but that the level of local demand for labour is also important. The report is an output from an ESRC-funded project on ‘Harnessing Growth Sectors for Poverty Reduction’. It highlights that low pay is a key feature of the accommodation/food services, residential care, wholesale/retail, and the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors. Three of these sectors (accommodation / food services, residential care, wholesale and retail) are likely to have the highest employment demand in the medium term. Hence policies are needed which focus on upgrading skills and developing career in order to help reduce low pay and in-work poverty. Find out more in the Growth Sectors report.