Institute for Employment Research » IER News & blogs (tag [Covid-19])

Physical space matters

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 11:00:00 GMT

In their new article “Spatiality of Service Delivery in the Covid19 Pandemic: Transcending Spatial Boundaries or Accommodating Logistical Challenges?”, Dr Katharina Sarter and Elizabeth Cookingham Bailey argue that the relationship between a service and requirements relating to physical space is vital for understanding service delivery.

Event: Graduate careers and Covid-19 - winners and losers

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 12:43:00 GMT

Speakers: Professors Kate Purcell and Peter Elias, CBE, Gaby Atfield and Dr Erika Kispeter

Date and time: 1.00 pm - 3.30 pm, Thursday, 10 March, 2022. Lunch will be provided for those attending in person, with the online event starting at 1.30 pm

Venue: Wolfson Research Exchange, Warwick University Library/Zoom

Please register on Eventbrite: face-to-face event or online event.

Rapid evidence review on mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on the workforce

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 17:08:00 GMT

A rapid evidence review by Gaby Atfield, Beate Baldauf and Erika Kispeter examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education, childcare and social work and related social care workforce. The review also examines how negative effects can be mitigated. The Department for Education funded this work following a recommendation from SAGE.

The Benefits of Hindsight: Assessing the impact of apprenticeship reforms on employer behaviour

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 07:55:00 GMT

A new report from IER provides an explanation for the decline in the number of apprenticeships starts following the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017. The research, funded by the Edge Foundation and Gatsby Foundation, was based on reviewing statistical evidence, and conducting interviews with a range of employers to find out how their apprenticeship recruitment had changed following the Levy’s introduction.

The report’s authors – Peter Dickinson and Terence Hogarth – explain the fall in the number of apprenticeship starts with reference to an increasing preference for employers to place people on relatively high level and more costly apprenticeships, and a fall in the number of apprentices being taken on in smaller, non-Levy paying enterprises. There are some transitional effects as well which are likely to be smoothed out with the passage of time.

The executive summary of the report is available along with the short report and the long report. Read Peter Dickinson's article in the HR Director here.

New report on the contribution of creative freelancers in the UK

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 13:35:00 GMT

Based on research with 85 creative freelancers in Coventry, Northumberland and Waltham Forest, the report 'Mind the Understanding Gap: The Value of Creative Freelancers' provides detail on the contribution of creative freelancers to the economic, societal and place-based impacts of the creative industries.

As the research, led by Coventry University, was undertaken in 2020 throughout the lockdowns, the report also identifies the impact of the pandemic on one of the most vulnerable groups of workers and sectors affected by Covid-19.

This report provides:

the range of value generation for the economy and for society of creative freelancing,
a typology of creative freelancers based on their generation of different types of value, and
policy directions to support the full and sustainable contribution to economy, society and places of creative freelancing.

ReWAGE launched

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 11:37:00 GMT

ReWAGE – Renewing Work Advisory Group of Experts – has launched. Hosted by IER with the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC) at Leeds University, it is an expert advisory group to support the government’s strategic response to the recovery and renewal of work and employment in the UK post-Covid. It will sit into 2022.

It will produce evidence papers, policy briefings and reports for government on specialist topics important for maintaining existing jobs, creating new and better jobs and ensuring a return to a well-functioning labour market. Contact ReWAGE for more information.

Teleworking in Europe before and during the pandemic

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 18:13:00 GMT

In a recent webinar, hosted by the Productivity and the Futures of Work GRP at the University of Warwick and facilitated by IER’s Professor Chris Warhurst, Dr Enrique Fernández-Macías of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission examined how Covid-19 had changed the profile of the teleworker and what it meant for the future of work. The recording of the webinar is accessible via the replay link.

New Futuretrack Reports: Ten Years On - and the impact of the pandemic on graduate careers

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 17:16:00 GMT

The publication of the Futuretrack Stage 5 study conducted in 2019, led by Professors Peter Elias and Kate Purcell and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, showed ‘how the majority of graduates had by then achieved reasonable job security, with many balancing work and parenting or other caring roles when the pandemic hit’ (see press release). In 2020, the research team went back to respondents to investigate how they had been affected by the Covid restrictions and economic impact and conducted Futuretrack Stage 6.

For full details of the research see:

the report on the Covid-19 impact: Covid 19 and graduate careers
a slightly revised version of the report published in March 2021: Ten Years On – the Futuretrack Graduates
a short report that summarises and draws the implications of both the above What a difference a year makes: the impact of Covid 19 on graduate careers

Carrying the work burden of the Covid-19 pandemic: working class women in the UK – final report out now

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 17:34:00 GMT

Clare Lyonette from IER has been collaborating with Professor Tracey Warren from Nottingham University Business School on a 12-month ESRC-funded project on the impact of Covid on working class women. The final report was published to coincide with a webinar on June 18th.

The authors are also presenting their main findings to the Women and Equalities Committee on June 30th, as part of an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account grant, which focuses on disseminating current Covid-related employment research undertaken by IER to relevant UK parliamentarians, with the hope that it will then feed into their deliberations about economic recovery post-Covid.

More information can be found:

in the final report
in an article in The Conversation
on the Nottingham University Business schools' COVID-19 Working women page
in the webinar recording.

Joanna Octavia awarded third place at the 2021 CERIC Doctoral Conference

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 07:56:00 GMT

IER Doctoral Researcher Joanna Octavia was awarded third place at the 2021 CERIC Doctoral Conference at the Leeds University Business School on Friday, 21 May 2021. Joanna presented the preliminary findings of her PhD fieldwork, which focuses on the internet organising and mobilising efforts on platform-based motorcycle taxi drivers in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Held at Leeds' Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC), the theme for this year's doctoral conference was 'The Future of Work in a Post-Covid World'. A total of 28 papers presented at the conference covered a broad spectrum of disciplines related to: the impact of digitalisation on work and employment; inequalities in race, gender, class, (dis)ability in a post-Covid world; and the role of human resources management in a changing environment.