Erika Kispeter gave a talk at the Westminster Higher Education Policy Conference online event entitled ‘The graduate labour market post COVID-19' on 20 October 2020. The conference focused on how university careers services, employers and governments should prepare students for employment in the UK in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Erika’s talk on the 'The impact of postgraduate qualifications on employment prospects' drew on the results of the recently completed research project 'Degrees of Advantage? A longer-term investigation of the careers of UK graduates', the latest stage of Futuretrack, IER’s longitudinal study of graduate careers. The study follows a cohort of UK graduates who started their university education in 2006.

Working Futures 2017-2027 projections for the Economic Regions of Wales are now available. Read the report, published by the Welsh government, here and access the Excel workbooks from the sub-regional projections link here.

Please note that these projections were created when it was expected there would be a negotiated Brexit and before the Covid-19 pandemic, which may result in considerable disruption to the UK and world economic system.

New research on the educational psychology (EP) workforce conducted by the IER on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE) is now available online.

The report draws on mixed-methods research to map the current distribution and demographic profile of the Local Authority (LA) EP workforce in England and, where possible, also the non-LA EP workforce. It provides evidence on factors driving shortages of trainee and qualified EPs in LAs facing recruitment and retention difficulties. It also makes recommendations on the current training model for EPs.

In September IER hosted a second cohort of labour market officials from the Nigerian Government’s Industrial Training Fund. The visitors receive training in the labour market data and analysis techniques developed by IER, covering: higher and vocational education; labour market classification, measurement and forecasting; and careers guidance and labour market information for all. The aim is to help build greater capacity in labour market analysis in Nigeria as the country seeks to diversify its economic base.

In July 2018, Dr Giulio Pedrini and Dr Luca Cattani from the University of Bologna will visit the IER for a month, working with Dr Daria Luchinskaya (IER) and Dr Charoula Tzanakou (PAIS) to develop a collaborative programme of research on graduate employment between the University of Warwick and the University of Bologna.

During their visit, funded by the Institute of Advanced Studies International Fellowships award, the researchers will investigate graduates’ transitions into the labour market in Italy and the UK, comparing the two labour market regimes and the roles of training and internships in enabling career progression. As part of the visit, a number of workshops and events will be organised, including an IER lunchtime workshop.

Drs Pedrini and Cattani have both visited the IER previously. Dr Cattani visited in 2012-13, where he developed a classification of graduate jobs for Italy for a part of his PhD, “Overeducation of Italian graduates.” Dr Pedrini visited the IER in 2015, working on his project “Non-standard employment as a determinant of off-the job and on-the-job training” with Prof. Kate Purcell, and contributing to the IER project “Precarious pathways to employment for young people” (“Paths2Work”). This visit will further the collaboration on graduate employment research between the IER and the University of Bologna. Both IER and the University of Bologna have longitudinal surveys of graduates’ higher education experience and employment, Futuretrack and AlmaLaurea respectively. The visit is timely, as Prof. Chris Warhurst and Dr Luchinskaya are leading the fifth stage of the Futuretrack project, and Dr Tzanakou is publishing on graduate transitions in the UK labour market with Prof. Purcell from the “Paths2Work” project.