糖心TV

The gender pay gap is well researched. This new paper by IER鈥檚 Honorary Professor Rafael Mu帽oz de Bustillo Llorente and his Spanish team adds to that body of research by examining the non-monetary gap in working conditions by gender. Using the European Working Conditions Survey, it explores gender differences in working conditions by different dimensions of job quality and across countries.

Are apprenticeships in peril?

Apprentices are employees of the companies that train them. It stands to reason that if employment falls then the number of apprentices will fall. But looking back to the 2008 economic crisis, it is apparent that the number of apprentices actually increased, in large measure due to the apprenticeship programme expanding its occupational coverage. This time around it looks as if apprenticeships will have little fertile ground to feed any further expansion. Other things being equal it seems reasonable to expect the number of apprentices to show a potentially precipitous fall, at least over the short-term.

Social economy enterprises (SEEs) – such as cooperatives and social enterprises – comprise around 7% of UK employment. A published by the Institute for Employment Research (IER) found that SEEs weathered the storm of the 2008 Financial crisis better than other enterprises and were able to deliver inclusive growth, sustainable development and higher quality jobs. Moreover SEEs in Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK provided faster jobs growth compared to other organisations. The resilience and jobs growth of SEEs in the wake of the 2008 Financial crisis should therefore be harnessed to support the current pandemic economic recovery.

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic and ongoing, Dr Sally-Anne Barnes and Professor Jenny Bimrose have been drawing upon their latest research to support the international careers guidance and counselling community by delivering online learning via a number of webinars.

Nearly 400 practitioners from professional associations and government departments from across the world have participated in the webinars and are drawing upon IER research to inform their practice. Webinars have covered recent research on how to support parents and carers in providing careers support, careers labour market information, and lifelong guidance policy and practice.

We would like to congratulate two of our former students who have been awarded their doctorates today, Dr Lorraine Johnson and Dr Jeisson C谩rdenas-Rubio.

Dr Johnson interviewed women about their transition from public sector work during a period of austerity focusing on the intermediary systems they used. Lorraine鈥檚 research evidenced the range of support systems used to aid transitions and provided a number of recommendations for careers practice. Lorraine is currently undertaking an early career fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of 糖心TV.

Dr Cardenas-Rubio investigated to what extent a web-based model of skill mismatches could be developed for countries where the information on the labour market is relatively scarce. Jeisson鈥檚 research drew upon innovative methods in web scraping, big data analytics and machine learning to produce labour market information for Columbia that was analysed to provide a picture of the Columbian labour market. We are pleased that Jeisson joined the IER team earlier this year.