IER News & blogs

The narrative study led by Professor Jenny Bimrose with colleagues from IER and partners in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and Poland has been published by Cedefop who commissioned the research.

The report draws both on literature review and an original collection of stories from biographical interviews of individuals from seven European countries. The narrative accounts describe the wide variety of experiences with initial and further education. The analysis focuses on motivations for learning (or not) and the findings confirm that early negative experiences with schooling have a scarring effect inhibiting workers’ willingness to re-engage in education later in life. Nevertheless, many low-educated adults were found to command a variety of skills, which they have developed in the work context.

A consortium of researchers has carried out an in-depth investigation into major business sectors in the UK, looking at ‘the productivity puzzle’. The recent poor productivity performance of the UK economy has become a major concern for economists and policy-makers. Existing data on productivity differs from sector to sector, presenting a challenge to those trying to unpick the causes of the recent downturn.

The Institute for Employment Studies, SQW economic development consultancy, the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick and Cambridge Econometrics examined the creative, retail, manufacturing and food manufacturing sectors, plus digitisation and leadership and management as cross-sector issues for concern.

The consortium has published a set of reports on these topics, which unpack the characteristics of productivity for each sector, outlining the major challenges, looking to the future, identifying priorities for change and how employers and government can help.

The sector studies explored published research and data for existing knowledge on the factors impacting productivity in each specific sector.

The two cross-cutting reports investigated what we know of the role of management and leadership and digitisation as factors affecting UK productivity across sectors. Penny Tamkin, lead author of two reports and director of employer research and consultancy at the Institute for Employment Studies, commented:

‘Each of the reports provides a deep dive into the collated evidence on productivity and what the future might hold to provide the evidence to support those attempting to bring about a step change in our performance.’

Michael Frearson, director at SQW economic development consultancy, said:

‘The set of six reports complements parallel work undertaken by the Productivity Leadership Group chaired by Sir Charlie Mayfield, announced in the Government’s July 2015 Productivity Plan. The reports offer solutions for implementation by business leaders in key sectors of the economy, to strengthen business performance and foster growth.’

For more information go to the Strategic LMI project page.

IER welcomes Professor Dennis Nickson, Professor of Service Work and Employment at the Department of HRM, University of Strathclyde, who has been awarded an IAS Visiting Residential Fellowship. He will be at IER between 11-17 September 2016. Professor Nickson’s primary research interests centre on work and employment issues in interactive service work, with a particular concentration on the retail and hospitality industries. He is one of the team – along with Professor Chris Warhurst (IER Director) and the late Professor Anne Witz – who developed the concept of aesthetic labour.

Professor Anne Green talks about the importance of in-work progression in a recent Manchester Policy Blog. Anne draws on evidence from her IER work to highlight the importance of employment initiatives to help people in-work move out of poverty. To conclude, Anne draws out a number of policy challenges for city-regions to consider.

Professor Rob Wilson contributes to NatWest's recent blog 'The 50% with Prospects?'. Drawing on IER's Working Futures work, produced by Rob with colleagues in IER and Cambridge Econometrics, he explains that, despite policies to reduce gender discrimination, the occupational employment structure remains “strongly segregated". Rob also talks about the losses of secretarial positions are expected to continue, but an uptick in the female-heavy caring and leisure sectors could provide a counterbalance. Find out more about the future labour market in Working Futures 2014-2014.