Press Releases
Midlands Plastics Companies Win £2 million Worth of Free New Technology Support
The University of Warwick's Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) and Rapra Technology have won £2 million of funding to help West Midlands plastics companies in their adoption of new technology, environmental improvements and waste reduction activities.
New Research Says up to one in five of vacancies remain unfilled due to skill shortages
In the last decade, unemployment has halved and job vacancies have more than doubled. Now, nearly 15% of establishments have unfilled jobs and 2.7% of jobs are vacant. And according to research by Dr Andy Dickerson from the University of Warwick's Institute For Employment Research , presented to the Royal Economic Society's Annual Conference on Tuesday 8 April, one in five of these vacancies remain unfilled due to skill shortages among the job applicants.
Dr Dickerson's report examines the nature and distribution of job vacancies in order to understand why there are 'workers without jobs' and 'jobs without workers.
Competition policy should make it easier for consumers to switch suppliers
Competition policy is traditionally concerned with regulating firms: controlling mergers, price rigging and so on. But as new research by University of Warwick Economist Professor Michael Waterson shows, policy should equally be concerned with making it easier for consumers to switch suppliers, so assisting markets to work more competitively. For example, some people are still paying too much for electricity despite the arrival of a competitive market.
Pay freezes make workers just as unhappy as pay cuts
Pay freezes make workers just as unhappy as pay cuts, according to new research by University of Warwick economist Dr Jennifer Smith, to be presented at the Royal Economic Society's Annual Conference on Tuesday 8 April. But her research also shows that happiness (both satisfaction with pay and overall job satisfaction) is strongly affected by factors other than pay.
Distance from London holds Back Spread of Fast Food Outlets in UK
New research by University of Warwick Economics Professor Michael Waterson, to be presented at the Royal Economic Society's Annual Conference on Tuesday 8 April, explores the influences on the spread of fast food outlets for the key case of McDonalds in the UK. It finds unsurprisingly that population and
population density influence the spread of their outlets - locations around the UK with greater population and greater population density received outlets first. However distance from their head office in London also mattered. Districts more distant from London than others are likely to get outlets more slowly. As expected the research also found that once the company moves into a particular part of the country, adjoining areas are more likely to have outlets developed there.
New research says a university degree adds 25% to earnings
New research by Professor Ian Walker and Dr Yu Zhu, economists at the University of Warwick, says that completing an undergraduate degree adds an average of around 25% to ones earnings compared to those who choose to leave education at 18. But the research also shows that this boost in earnings varies considerably depending on degree subject.