Jenny Bimrose and Alan Brown were invited to make presentations to the Tertiary Education Commission of New Zealand (TEC) at their offices in Wellington on 25th October, 2018. This organisation describes itself as a nexus linking learning and work. They were interested in hearing about:

• How TEC can best serve our labour market needs through good investment in training and education
• The alignment of good information and good career decision making
• Ways of informing and educating learners and their families over a lifetime
• Balancing the employment and socio-economic investment strategies in a way that will address skills mismatches and workforce needs.

Jenny Bimrose and Alan Brown made a formal presentation to about sixty senior TEC employees, followed by two more informal workshops. The three topics on which they spoke were:

• The National Careers Strategy: integrating labour market information (LMI)
• Integrating labour market information more effectively in career practice
• The development of career adaptability in vocational education and training (VET).

A new book on women's career development edited by Jenny Bimrose (IER University of Warwick), Mary McMahon (University of Queensland) and Mark Watson (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) is now available.

This multidisciplinary volume pulls together contributions from sociology, management, industrial, organisational and vocational psychology, geography and career guidance. International perspectives from nine countries also provide compelling narratives about the patterns of women’s career development continuing to reflect structural labour market disadvantage. Published on 18 January 2015, the book features chapters from members of IER staff (Professor Jenny Bimrose, Professor Anne Green, Professor Chris Warhurst) and IER Associate Fellows (Professor Nancy Arthur, Dr Simone Haasler, Dr Ying Kuang, Dr Mary McMahon, Professor Philip Taylor, Dr Pamela Suzanne, Massimo Tomassini, Professor Mark Watson).

IER would like to welcome Dr Mary McMahon, from The University of Queensland, who has arrived this week to start her 4 week IAS Fellowship. Mary will be presenting at various events over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on our news for more information. Professor Mark Watson, Distinguished Professor from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, will also be visiting IER at the end of June. Together Mary, Mark and Jenny will be pursuing their international research collaboration on older women.

In the sixth of a series of podcasts about our work at the Institute for Employment Research, Professor Alan Brown talks about the role of learning in developing career adaptability at work. He reports on a qualitative evaluation of 64 adults’ career biographies in the UK and Norway undertaken for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.For more on the report go to The role of career adaptability in skills supply

Professor Jenny Bimrose, Professor Alan Brown and Dr Sally-Anne will be attending the IAEVG conference on Career Guidance and Development Practices around the World, in Cape Town, South Africa (19-21 October). Professor Jenny Bimrose will present with IER Associate Fellows, Professor Mark Watson and Dr Mary McMahon on ‘Paradoxes in the career transitions of older women’. Together with Professor Alan Brown, Jenny will be presenting on ‘Stories of career adaptability from England and Norway’. Dr Sally-Anne Barnes, with Jenny, will present on ‘Developing and integrating IT innovations in careers guidance in the UK’. Sally-Anne will also be showcasing some on the IT systems researched and developed for careers guidance organisations in the UK.