IER Newsletter - November 2017

Warwick Brexit Briefings on Employment

A series of research-based policy briefings will take place in the coming weeks in London:

Monday, 27 November - Training Funds for the Unemployed: Chris Warhurst, Daria Luchinskaya & Peter Dickinson
Thursday, 7 December - Employment Rights: Ania Zbyszewska & Alan Neal

The events will be held at Central Hall, Maurice Barnett room, Westminster, London, SW1H 9NH from 12:30-1:30 with lunch available from 12:00.
If you would like to RSVP to any of the events, please contact Lynne Marston: L.Marston@warwick.ac.uk. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* Read More *|END:IF|* *|IF:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*
The series, UK Employment Policy in a Changing Europe - Warwick Brexit Briefings on Employment is organized by the University of Warwick and its Connecting Research on Employment and Work (CREW) Network. The policy issues covered will be those of unemployment and training, job creation and loss, migration and skills, and employment rights.
Experts from the Warwick Institute for Employment Research, Warwick Law School and Warwick Business School's Industrial Relations Research Unit evaluate the employment policy, rights, skills and labour market implications of the UK's withdrawal from the EU and make research-based recommendations for future development of policy in these areas, as the UK leaves the EU. Organised by Warwick University’s: Business School, Institute for Employment Research, and Law School, the Warwick Brexit Briefings on Employment draw on existing Warwick expertise and research to put forward proposals for the development of employment policy as it is redesigned, post-Brexit, by the UK Government. The policy issues covered will be those of unemployment and training, job creation and loss, migration and skills, and employment rights.

Briefings presented earlier in November:

Migration and Skills: Guglielmo Meardi, Anne Green & Erika Kispeter. Click here to download a copy.
Job Loss and Job Creation – Pitfalls and Opportunities?: Nigel Driffield and Erika Kispeter. Click here to download the brief.

Norwegian national careers guidance conference

Jenny Bimrose was invited to give a keynote presentation on the first day of a two day national conference in Oslo, Norway (31st October - 1st November). The title of the conference was "Framtiden banker på" - which may be translated to "The Future knocks on the door."
The main themes of the conference were career learning, competences and competence needs for the future, quality in guidance and blended guidance. Jenny was invited to present on the use and misuse of labour market information.

Occupational health and 'good work' event

On behalf of the Carnegie UK Trust, Chris Warhurst facilitated a session on dimensions and indicators of good work at the House of Lords on 7 November. The event was hosted by the Society for Occupational Medicine and Carnegie UK Trust, and explored the link between workers' health and the management of organisations.

Participants included medical practitioners, employers and their representative bodies, trade unions, the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions.
The importance of work to our wellbeing is widely documented, but the impact of different types of work and workplace practices on employee health and wider wellbeing is less understood.
Contributions set out a vision for work as a force for good, which improves rather than undermines wellbeing, and explored how health professionals can support people at work.

Career guidance in the Nordic countries

Jenny Bimrose was invited to give a keynote presentation at the Annual Conference of the Profession of Career Counselling in Stockholm, Sweden (26 - 27 October). She presented on the effectiveness of career counselling on the first day of the conference, highlighting longitudinal research carried out by IER.

Financialisation and labour

Sally Wright has had a co-authored article published in the journal Economic and Labour Relations Review on the growing financial logic inside ‘production’ and work in the Australian construction sector. Financialisation and financial risk have become current buzzwords, but the connections between finance and labour are not well developed.
Often labour is cast simply as the distributional victim of developments like shareholder value, the privatisation of public infrastructure and labour market reform. This article engages developments in the construction industry and identifies causal connections, not just parallels, between financial innovation and the reorganisation of the logic and structure of work in the Australian construction and property services industry.

Bryan, D., Rafferty, M., Toner, P. and Wright, S. (2017). Financialisation and labour in the Australian commercial construction industry. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Vol. 28, Issue 7, available (online first) on the journal's website.

New projects

Barriers to military spousal employment research project, Army Families Federation, Principal Investigator: Clare Lyonette

Solving Poverty: Reforming Social Security/Welfare Benefits, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trust for London, Principal Investigator: Michael Orton

Find more information on IER's current projects.