Tag: Labour market flexibility

Unequal Britain At Work

Unequal Britain At Work

Posted by | Thursday 5th March 2020 |

This book provides the first systematic assessment of trends in inequality in job quality in Britain in recent decades. It assesses the pattern of change drawing on the nationally representative Skills and Employment Surveys (SES) carried out at regular intervals from 1986 to 2012. These surveys collect data from workers themselves thereby providing a unique picture of trends in job quality.

The book is concerned both with wage and non-wage inequalities (focusing, in particular on skills, training, task discretion, work intensity, organizational participation, and job security), and how these inequalities relate to class, gender, contract status, unionisation, and type of employer. Amid rising wage inequality there has nevertheless been some improvement in the relative job quality experienced by women, part-time employees, and temporary workers. Yet the book reveals the remarkable persistence of major inequalities in the working conditions of other categories of employee across periods of both economic boom and crisis.

Beginning with a theoretical overview, before describing the main data series, this book examines how job quality differs between groups and across time.

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Employer Strategy And The Labour Market

Employer Strategy And The Labour Market

Posted by | Thursday 5th March 2020 |

The rapid pace of industrial restructuring and the emergence of new employment policies have focused attention on the role of employers in determining the quantity and quality of employment. This book draws on important new data from the ESRC’s Social Change and Economic Life Initiative to test, modify, and challenge much of the current academic literature on the determinants of employer policy and how these influence employment structures and individual employment opportunities.

The book begins with an authoritative synthesis of the influential debates on labour market segmentation, flexibility, post-Fordism, deskilling, the gendering of work, and the `new’ industrial relations. Ten substantive chapters then extend these debates in several directions.

The contributors make significant progress on three fronts:
• They suggest that the determinants of employer policy are both complex and strongly related to product market conditions.
• They find that employee attitudes and perceptions are critical to the implementation and effectiveness of employer policy.
• They explore the interdependency between internal employment policies and external labour market conditions and begin to develop an integrated approach to internal and external labour markets.

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Beyond Skill: Institutions, Organisations And Human Capability

Beyond Skill: Institutions, Organisations And Human Capability

Posted by | Thursday 5th March 2020 |

Labour market, work and economic development policy visions in many developed countries have been dominated in recent years by a fixation on skills. However, skill and skill development alone is not enough to harmonise societies, transform economies, galvanise organizations, and fulfil individuals.

This book discusses the impact of government policy, other institutional arrangements, organizational practices, collective and individual behaviour, on things of importance to many of us: work, employment, pay, work environments, learning, participation and voice. It is a unique volume of insights from leading researchers and research centres in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

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