ReWAGE News Archive

ReWAGE’s new evidence paper Job Quality and Productivity in the Small Firm looks at the different characteristics and working practices of large firms and smaller firms and what impact this has on ensuring a good working experience for their employees.

Small firms (those with up to 50 employees) account for about 34 per cent of private sector employment in the UK - a not inconsiderable number. Policymakers seeking to either offer support to improve job quality, or attempting to measure the quality of jobs in the UK, need to consider the unique characteristics of small firms when developing advice, guidance or interventions.

Despite efforts by successive governments over recent years to tackle the shortage of intermediate level skills, typically associated with the employment of technicians and similar types of jobs – from the 2020 Plan for Jobs; the 2021 Skills for Jobs white paper, and the 2022 Levelling Up paper – shortages persist.

ReWAGE’s new evidence paper: How to address skills shortages at the intermediate skills level examines the evidence and sets out recommendations to address it. Solutions include reducing the net cost of apprenticeship training to employers and providing adult careers guidance to help both employees and those out of work make the right choices about their training and development needs.

ReWAGE is fortunate in having some of the UK’s foremost thinkers on its Expert Group, drawn from leading universities and research organisations from across the UK. Between them they have a huge breadth of knowledge, covering such subjects as the labour market, job quality, employment relations and the changing nature of work.

This week we are pointing the spotlight onto ReWAGE expert Professor Monder Ram (OBE), Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston University and our expert on small business and ethnic minority entrepreneurship.