Search Results

The transition from school to work in the UK has undergone dramatic change since the 1970s and the labour market that young people are entering is now significantly different to that faced by previous generations. While securing employment has always proven difficult for unqualified youth, they are particularly disadvantaged in today’s labour market. In place of full-time employment, young people are being confronted with different forms of flexible employment. However, the growth in the demand for flexible labour has benefited young people engaged in full-time education who have over the 1990s increasingly combined study and work. Interviews with senior management in the retail grocery sector suggest that the availability of student labour has enabled them to maintain a high-quality labour force while pursuing flexible work practices. This illustrates the heterogeneous nature of the youth labour market and the need to make clear distinctions between those young people who are just in the labour market and those who are combining education and employment. Importantly, the growth in student employment emphasises the need to consider students as a significant segment of both the youth and general labour market.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

One of the six targets as part of the current 'Closing the gap' agenda is to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a decade (by 2018). Much of the focus around meeting this target has been the availability of jobs in remote Australia. However, given that the majority of the Indigenous population lives in cities and regional Australia where employment gaps are still quite high, most of the additional jobs required to meet [the Council of Australian Governments'] CoAG's target will need to be found in [Australia's] major cities and large regional towns. Across Australia, there are important labour demand issues resulting from uneven geographic access to labour markets. Utilising place of work and place of usual residence data from the 2006 Census, the analysis presented in this paper considers the proximity of Indigenous Australians to various urban labour markets and the likely impact on entrenching Indigenous socioeconomic disadvantage.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

The increasing emphasise on and expansion of education and the importance of qualifications raises the issue of what happens to those who do not complete their secondary school education. This report, focusing on early school leaving in Australia forms part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) research program. It focuses on students who leave school before the beginning of Year 11. The first part of the paper examines the social and demographic characteristics of early school leavers. The second part reports on the reasons for early school leaving and the third part of the study compares school leaving with social background, demographic, social and attitudinal factors. It also focuses on the effect of individual schools on early school leaving. The final section of the study examines the post-school activities of early school leavers focusing on their labour force participation.

Further publications arising from this research program may be found at: TD/TNC 56.13; TD/TNC 56.14; TD/TNC 56.15; TD/TNC 56.16; TD/TNC 59.91; TD/TNC 59.139; TD/TNC 59.140; TD/TNC 59.141; TD/TNC 60.61 and TD/TNC 60.62. Show less

Welfare-to-work programmes have replaced passive welfare recipiency as a means of fighting poverty in many developed countries during the last few decades. There is a belief that placing welfare recipients into subsidised jobs and/or strengthening their skills and knowledge will help them acquire steady jobs. There has, however, been no systematic review of the effects of such programmes on employment, earnings and welfare payments, searching systematically for studies from all parts of the world.

The objectives of this study are to estimate the effects of work programmes, including elements such as job search assistance, job search training, subsidised employment, job clubs, vocational training, etc. on welfare recipients' employment and economic self-sufficiency. Welfare-to-work programmes in the USA have shown small, but consistent effects in moving welfare recipients into work, increasing earnings, and lowering welfare payments. The results are not clear for reducing the proportion of recipients receiving welfare. Little is known about the impacts of welfare-to-work programmes outside of the USA. Show less

This report is the first output of a project entitled 'Access to what?: how to convert educational opportunity into employment opportunity for groups from disadvantaged backgrounds'. The project was funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils for England, Scotland and Wales, Universities UK, the Commission for Racial Equality, the Council for Industry and Higher Education, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit and the Open University. The aim of the project was to improve the employment prospects of students from socially 'disadvantaged' groups. The present report provides a detailed analysis, based on survey data and [Higher Education Support Act] HESA statistics, of the factors determining graduate employability and how these affect the employment prospects of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, from ethnic minorities and mature students. The second phase of the project explored the policies and practices needed to create greater equity in the graduate labour market. Show less

This report is concerned with the relationship between employer demand for skills and low-wage work and how local skills strategies might help improve outcomes for low earners. Weak employer demand for skills has important implications for the quality of work. It is associated with lower wages and with limited opportunities for progression. However policy makers in England have focused relatively little on this problem. Many other countries have been more proactive around this agenda. Recent changes in skills policy, with some greater devolution of responsibility to local areas and employers, may open up some new opportunities. This report: (1) reviews the international evidence on low-wage work and employer demand for skills; (2) examines the current policy context around skills in England; (3) provides a case study of local skills delivery under Sheffield’s City Deal; and (4) considers how local skills strategies can be shaped to help improve outcomes for low earners.

Published abstract. Show less

This thesis is about the effects of social origin and education on young people's transition from school to employment in a situation where unemployment among the educated is high. The study is mainly based on a survey of 3000 respondents, and in-depth interviews. Social origin and education determine the pattern of transition of the young people: their search behaviour, job search methods, job search process and the outcome, occupational attainment. Children of parents with low education have longer unemployment periods, find jobs that are unmatched with their education and consequently, tend to continue searching for alternative jobs while employed. Continued searching for job while employed or unemployed appears to be a result of 'coercion' rather than 'luxury'. This may relate to the fact that the socio-economic status of their parents, measured by education and occupation, provides occupations that were significantly low. The significant effect of the types of help given by parents on children's occupations also suggests that the involvement of parents in job acquisition is important in paving the way for their children's careers. Education also has significant and independent effects on occupation, so education also provides a channel for social mobility. Nevertheless, since parents' education has strong effects on both children's education and occupation, it seems that there is still a strong tendency for socio-economic status transmission from generation to generation, or a vicious circle: poor children get poor education and jobs.

Published abstract. Show less

There is a gulf between the wide-spread perception of discrimination against Indigenous Australians and the scholarly writings. Empirical studies of Indigenous wages tend to emphasise the importance of education and other measurable factors in determining disadvantage. The problem with this position is that focusing on measurable factors involves an implicit bias against factors that are difficult to measure, such as discrimination and culture. This paper mounts a case that much empirical work on Indigenous Australians has unwittingly perpetrated the myth that education and other socioeconomic outcomes are more important than discrimination and history. In the rush to quantify Indigenous disadvantage, existing empirical studies are implicitly biased against finding racial discrimination. By overemphasising the role of education and other endowments, empirical studies have created a public debate where practical reconciliation is given priority over a rights based agenda. In addition to providing an overview of cases of labour market discrimination pursued under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, this paper uses a recently developed statistical technique to explore the extent of potential discrimination against Indigenous workers looking for jobs. The findings confirm that discrimination appears to manifest itself in an inability to find jobs, rather than depressing the wages received.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

Selected papers from the conference are indexed from TD/TNC 78.109 to TD/TNC 78.117. Show less

Two years into the pandemic, economic activity has recovered faster than expected. However, the labour market recovery is still uneven across sectors and is threatened by the economic fallout from Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which has generated the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II, sending shockwaves throughout the world economy. The 2022 edition of the OECD Employment Outlook reviews the key labour market and social challenges for a more inclusive post-COVID-19 [Coronavirus Disease 2019] recovery. It also examines the policies to address these challenges and the outlook ahead. Particular attention is given to frontline workers and groups lagging behind in this recovery (young people, workers with less education, and racial/ethnic minorities). The Outlook also addresses a number of long-standing structural issues that have a key relevance for labour market inclusiveness, such as employer market power and its labour market consequences, the role of firms in wage inequality, and the effect of working time policies on well-being and economic outcomes.

Published abstract. Show less

More than 1.6 million people are incarcerated in prisons in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those released from prison often face daunting obstacles as they seek to reintegrate into their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the community. The Joyce Foundation's Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration (TJRD) tested employment programs for former prisoners in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, using a rigorous random assignment design. The project focused on transitional jobs programs that provide temporary subsidized jobs, support services, and job placement help. Transitional jobs are seen as a promising model for former prisoners and for other disadvantaged groups.

In 2007-2008, more than 1,800 men who had recently been released from prison were assigned, at random, to a transitional jobs program or to a program providing basic job search assistance but no subsidized jobs. The research team tracked both groups using state data on employment and recidivism. Because of the random assignment design, one can be confident that significant differences that emerged between the groups are attributable to the services each group received. This is the final report in the TJRD project. It assesses how the transitional jobs programs affected employment and recidivism during the two years after people entered the study.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less