The transition towards greener and more sustainable economies will have a significant impact on the EU labour market and skill needs will change. In order to understand the potential future outcomes, and anticipate their potential policy implications, a foresight Deep Dive has been carried out.
An expert team, including IER's Peter DickinsonLink opens in a new window, identified factors of change and met in four workshops to build scenarios and derive policy implications.
Knudsen, M., Caniëls, M., Dickinson, P., Hery, M., Könnölä, T. and Lotz-Sisitka, H. (2023). Futures of Green Skills and Jobs in Europe in 2050: Scenario and Policy Implications.
Public procurement and labour market inequality - a multi-faceted relationship
Over the past decades, public procurement has gained importance as a policy tool, also in the context of labour market and employment policies. Among others, public procurement is used as a lever to shape wages and working conditions, foster equality, and create jobs and training opportunities.
Focusing on the act of buying, from the initial identification of an object of purchase to conditions placed on the provider, in this article, Dr E.K. SarterLink opens in a new window examines and systematises the multi-faceted linkages between public procurement and labour market inequalities.
Promoting decent work through public procurement in Denmark
Buying decent work has attracted increased political and academic attention in Denmark, where especially trade unions and centre-left political parties have pushed the agenda for applying labour clauses in public procurement as well as ensure their enforcement. All Danish regional authorities and nine out of ten Danish municipalities apply labour clauses in some of their public procured work.
They typically use “generic” labour clauses aligned with the ILO-94 convention and typically request suppliers and subcontractors to adhere to wages and working conditions in the most representative collective agreement within the relevant sector. However, the enforcement of the labour clauses appears rather patchy and different public authorities have experimented with novel ways to address the enforcement gaps. This report is the Danish contribution to the Comparative EU funded Procurfair projectLink opens in a new window and through in-depth case studies, the report explores illustrative examples of Danish public authorities experimental enforcement initiatives.
Some of the main findings are that the public authorities examined have been fairly successful in implementing these novel enforcement models, but enforcement is costly and requires the building up of expertise in the form of knowledge and best practices. For smaller procuring entities, the cost of this enforcement easily outweighs what seems rational compared with the extent of procurement made. Thus, making joint enforcement units that can control and enforce on behalf of more than one procuring entity seems like a good way to make resource efficient enforcement. Other challenges involve the potential clash between regulatory systems, where it is the public procurement entities, not the social partners that are to assess potential violation of the collective agreements, which is in stark contrast to the traditional way of enforcing collective agreements in Denmark.
The Nordic Model: Capable of Responding to the Social Side of Crises and Sustaining Social Investment?
The Nordic countries are known for their comprehensive welfare states with universal high-quality services and an industrial relations model that fosters competitiveness, high wages and good working conditions. This explains why Nordic solutions are often highlighted as examples for European Union countries, especially in terms of social and labour market policy.
Yet, the Nordic countries also face short-term crises – like the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby sectors of the labour market were adversely affected – and longer-term challenges such as declining fertility rates – potentially undermining the quality of public welfare services.
This paperLink opens in a new window, co-authored by Professor Trine LarsenLink opens in a new window, examines how Nordic countries responded to challenges posed by the adverse labour market effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it stress-tested the welfare states. We find that the Nordic model has proven to be both flexible and robust in response to acute crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the Nordic welfare model continues to be resilient and to sustain social investment, which has changed incrementally, as illustrated by the case of early childhood education and care.
Study tour of careers centre managers from Egyptian universities
IER was formally invited by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to organise, facilitate and escort a delegation of Careers Centre Managers from Egyptian universities as part of a formal Study Tour in England.
Warwick Associate Professor Deidre Hughes OBELink opens in a new window, a renowned international expert on careers guidance, arranged site visits to university careers centres and meetings with key experts from Queen Mary University, Arden University, The University of Warwick, Aston University, the University of Birmingham and Nottingham Trent University. She also outlined examples of UK, European and international careers policies and practices.
The visit culminated in an online meeting with the Deputy Minister for Higher Education in Egypt.
Job quality of university graduates in South Korea
IER’s Dr Sangwoo LeeLink opens in a new window presented one of his recent research papers at the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) Seminar on 23 January 2024. This paper, co-authored with Prof Francis Green at UCL, examines trends in job quality, the gender job quality disparity and the job quality premium.
Despite the economic growth South Korea experienced during the past two decades, the overall job quality, including prospects, skills and discretion, social environment, physical environment, and work intensity, has worsened from 2006 to 2020. The paper further reveals that universities provide graduates with broader benefits beyond the well documented earnings premium, with graduates enjoying better job quality, compared to non-graduates, in all job quality domains except work intensity.
Trends in the development of Public Employment Service Delivery Models
On 23rd January 2024 Eamonn Davern gave a presentation at IER entitled 'Trends in the development of Public Employment Service Delivery Models'. Eamonn provided a tour d’horizon of how public employment services (PES) across the world have adapted their provision over recent decades.
Amongst other things, Eamonn outlined the innovations PES have introduced at different points in time in order to respond to a wide range of labour market developments and policy concerns.
Expert comment: Professor Chris Warhurst on 'better jobs'
IER Direct Professor Chris WarhurstLink opens in a new window provided an expert comment on Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak’s Pledges. According to Professor Warhurst: year ago, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to grow the economy. As part of this pledge, he promised to create better-paid jobs. He said that we’d all know that ‘things are getting better’. And he went further, saying that there’d be ‘No tricks … no ambiguity … we will either have achieved them or not’. Unfortunately there is ambiguity in how his pledge might be measured and checked. Read the full expert comment on the University of Warwick News and Events websiteLink opens in a new window.
