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.

In late September, IER's Anne Green travelled to South Africa at the invitation of the Human Sciences Research Council under the auspices of a National Research Foundation Knowledge, Interchange & Collaboration Grant. The purpose of her visit was to exchange knowledge on tackling unemployment issues in the UK, in order to feed into learning on poverty and inequality issues in South Africa. Anne gave a presentation at the Society of South African Geographers Centenary Conference in Stellenbosch and then travelled to Pretoria where she gave a Workshop and a Seminar on unemployment issues and labour market geographies.

In the fourth of a series of podcasts about our work at the Institute for Employment Research, Professor Anne Green speaks about her recent work on spatial inequalities in the UK and the importance of sub-national perspectives on employment and skills.

As part of the ESRC-Seminar Series 'Coping with Uncertainty: European labour markets and the politics of social reform in comparative perspective', Anne Green and Michael Orton will be presenting on urban governance. The 'Regional Diversity and Local Economic Development' (sponsored by the ESRC) organised by Cambridge University Centre for Business Research and Warwick European Policy Network (WEPN) will be on Friday June 5th 2009, 8:45am-4:15pm at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. To register for this seminar, please contact Alice Mah: a.mah@warwick.ac.uk