IER has been awarded £1.5 million by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to lead a major study on job quality and health. Led by IER’s Director Professor Chris Warhurst, the project will explore how job design affects workers' mental and physical well-being. Poor job quality has been linked to long-term sickness absence and economic inactivity. For more information see the University of Warwick press release.

Dr Sangwoo Lee explores Understanding Society data to measure the multi-dimensional concept of job quality, and Graham Atwell revisits the implications of AI for the future of jobs.

Chris Warhurst, Jamelia Harris and Jeisson Cardenas Rubio of IER along with Strathclyde University colleague Pauline Anderson have published an article in a special issue of the European Journal of Workplace Innovation. Using data from Scotland, their article ‘A Just Transition? Green jobs, good jobs and labour market inclusivity in Scotland’ presents mixed findings.

Low employment quality and precarious employment have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, yet the extent to which this association may be explained by the experience of unemployment “scarring” has not yet been explored. Drawing on UK data the article, assessed the links between individuals’ employment quality, unemployment history, and mental well-being and psychological distress. The results help further understanding of employment quality as a social determinant of health and highlight the need for both life course and gender-sensitive research in this area.

The new Labour Government is on a mission to grow the economy, with its primary aim focused on promoting fairness in employment, eradicating pay insecurity and offering more flexible working conditions. All of these objectives are tied to improving working conditions. As highlighted in a body of literature, including a recent study by the Institute for Employment Research (IER), good jobs with better job quality benefit both individual workers and society as a whole by boosting innovation, increasing productivity and improving individual wellbeing. The creation of more good jobs would support the Government's efforts to stimulate economic growth and generate the tax revenues necessary for public infrastructure investment, such as schools and hospitals. But what is the path towards creating more ‘good jobs’? How can we make meaningful progress in achieving better job quality?