Jobs· Labour market· Quality and security From rights to reality Enforcing labour market laws in the UK 16 September 2019 by Lindsay Judge and Nye Cominetti Today’s labour market looks nothing like it did even a decade ago. With more women in the workplace than ever before, the decline of key sectors such as retail and manufacturing and the rise of self-employment, who works, where we work and the ways that we work have all changed significantly over time. Laws and … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Jobs· Demographics· Pay· Intergenerational Centre Mapping millennials’ living standards 29 August 2019 by Maja Gustafsson Intergenerational progress – the idea that each successive cohort should have higher living standards than predecessors at the same age – has slowed down markedly for today’s young adults. This puts their experience in stark contrast to the rapid cohort-on-cohort improvements in standards of living up until those born in the 1970s. Because many people … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Skills· Apprenticeships Trading up or trading off? Understanding recent changes to England’s apprenticeships system 24 August 2019 by Kathleen Henehan In 2017 there was overhaul to the apprenticeships system in England: large firms were required to pay 0.5 per cent of their wage bill into an apprenticeship levy, while regulations on training and delivery were firmed up. Two years on, this briefing note takes stock of the system, looking at what’s changed, why and where … Continued READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Pay· Minimum wage Earnings Outlook Q1 2019 29 July 2019 In our latest quarterly Earnings Outlook, we focus on two of the biggest changes to the UK labour market over the past two decades – rising self-employment (from 3.4 million in 1999 to 5 million today) and the introduction and ramping up of the legal minimum wage (from £3.60 in 1999 to £8.21 today) – … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Moving matters Housing costs and labour market mobility 6 June 2019 by Lindsay Judge Moving matters for living standards. Taking a new job in a different firm has a larger pay uplift than simply being promoted , and moving to a more productive area comes with an even bigger pay premium. In this note we look at why young people are moving jobs and homes less than in the past, and explore the extent to which diverging housing costs lies behind this trend. READ MORE
Labour market· Low pay· Pay· Minimum wage· Living Wage Low Pay Britain 2019 30 May 2019 by Nye Cominetti and Kathleen Henehan and Stephen Clarke This is our ninth annual report on low pay. This edition focuses on the minimum wage, which recently turned 20. It analyses the extent to which the minimum wage has reduced the proportion of the working-age population in low pay. It also looks to the future, asking how fast the minimum wage can boost wages for the lowest earners while managing the inevitable risks to employment. READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Low pay· Pay· Minimum wage The Resolution Foundation Earnings Outlook Q4 2018 30 March 2019 by Nye Cominetti Our quarterly earnings outlook, for Q4 2018. With the minimum wage now 20 years old, we chart its impact on low pay over two decades. We also look at the impact of the post-2016 increases, and prospects for the wage floor over the next few years. READ MORE
Labour market· Skills Pick up the pace: the slowdown in educational attainment growth and its widespread effects 18 March 2019 by Kathleen Henehan This paper highlights that while improvements to the country’s human capital stock have been driven by increasingly educated cohorts of young people flowing into the labour market, the pace of growth in young people’s educational attainment has more than halved since the start of the 21st century. This ‘slowdown’ brings with it worrying implications for productivity and living standards. READ MORE
Labour market· Low pay· Minimum wage· Cities and regions Low pay in Greater Manchester: A report for the Greater Manchester Independent Prosperity Review 5 March 2019 by Conor D’Arcy and Laura Gardiner and Fahmida Rahman In this report, we provide an in-depth look at low pay in Greater Manchester. We explore who is in the low-paid workforce, the jobs they work in, their routes out of low pay, the dynamism of the local labour market and the role of employers. READ MORE
Firms· Labour market· Productivity & industrial strategy· Economic growth Sorry, we’re closed: Understanding the impact of retail’s decline on people and places 27 February 2019 by Daniel Tomlinson and Laura Gardiner Headlines about shop closures might give the impression that retail’s decline is a recent phenomenon, but retail’s share of employment has been falling for 15 years. This report digs behind this long-run trend, driven by changes in what we spend and how we spend it, and focuses in on what really matters when it comes to economic change: people and places. READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Pay The Resolution Foundation Earnings Outlook Q3 2018 6 February 2019 Our quarterly earnings outlook, for Q3 2018. We look ahead to 2019, and ask whether recent improvements in pay growth will continue throughout the year (the view of the Bank of England) or will fall away (the view of the Office for Budget Responsibility). READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Quality and security· Low pay· Pay Atypical approaches: Options to support workers with insecure incomes 21 January 2019 by Conor D’Arcy and Fahmida Rahman There has been much debate about the certainty of income that atypical work provides, and whether the rights of workers are being consistently upheld. This report explores these issues, looking beyond a minimum wage premium, at how other high-income countries have sought to reduce one-sided flexibility in the labour market. READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market Setting the record straight: How record employment has changed the UK 14 January 2019 by Stephen Clarke and Nye Cominetti This report looks at Britain’s record employment rate, and the impact that rising employment has had on different groups within society. We bust some myths too, showing that the increase in employment is not all about London and zero-hour contracts. READ MORE
Labour market The good, the bad and the ugly: the experience of agency workers and the policy response 30 November 2018 by Lindsay Judge The final output from a two year work progamme, this report presents both qualitative and quantative research investigating the world of agency workers. We show how the agency worker experience is plural, with good, bad and ugly practice encountered by many. We also reflect on how policy makers can best respond to the complex reality that we reveal. READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Pay The Resolution Foundation Earnings Outlook Q2 2018 13 November 2018 by Stephen Clarke and Nye Cominetti Our quarterly earnings outlook for Q2 2018. We focus on the decline in regional job mobility (people moving region for work) and argue that this is due to structural rather than cyclical trends – potentially due to the rise of remote working, and fewer people working in large firms with multiple locations. READ MORE
Labour market· Quality and security· Universal Credit· Pay Irregular Payments: Assessing the breadth and depth of month to month earnings volatility 15 October 2018 by Daniel Tomlinson This research addresses the question of earnings volatility, unearthing striking findings about the lived experience of work – and the pay we receive for it – in the UK today. This report makes use of anonymised transaction data from over seven million Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) accounts in order to demonstrate the breadth and depth of changes in pay from month to month. READ MORE
Labour market· Pay Count the pennies: Explaining a decade of lost pay growth 9 October 2018 by Stephen Clarke and Paul Gregg This paper gets to the bottom of why real wages are still 3 per cent below their level before the crisis. It both explains why the wage squeeze was so much worse in the UK compared to other advanced economies and why the recovery since 2014 has been so sluggish. READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Pay The RF Earnings Outlook Q1 2018 2 August 2018 by Stephen Clarke Our quarterly earnings outlook, for Q1 2018. The outlook explores whether the current pace of wage growth is as good as it gets. Despite signs of improvement, annual growth in weekly wages is almost 1.5 percentage points lower than the pre-crisis average. READ MORE
Labour market· Skills· Intergenerational Centre Technical Fault: Options for promoting human capital growth 27 April 2018 by Kathleen Henehan and Anna Vignoles This is the 20th paper for the Intergenerational Commission, focused on the pace of and inequality within education attainment. It proposes a ‘twin-track’ approach to reforming the skills landscape in order to restart generational progress on human capital: both ‘fixing’ the technical (non-A level/university) education offer for future generations of young people, and providing additional support for those lower-qualified young adults who have already left school. READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Pay The RF Earnings Outlook Q4 2017 28 March 2018 by Stephen Clarke In Q4 2017 the pay squeeze for that year looked set to dissipate and employment rates continued to rise. But, taking a longer view, weaker than expected productivity growth suggests that the outlook for real pay growth is likely to remain subdued. READ MORE
Labour market· Intergenerational Centre The kids aren’t alright: a new approach to tackle the challenges faced by young people in the UK labour market 26 February 2018 by Stephen Clarke and Conor D’Arcy A bold new approach is required to help the one in three millennials who say they’ve been held back from moving jobs. New challenges have emerged for today’s millennials: over half of all those on zero-hours contracts aged 16-34. READ MORE
Jobs· Firms· Labour market· Quality and security Choices, choices… Why do firms use agency workers? 10 February 2018 by Lindsay Judge With the number of agency workers on the up, this piece of research explores why firms use this contingent type of labour rather than directly employed staff. We show that the majority of firms that make use of agency workers still hire them primarily as ‘stop-gaps’,. However, one-third of such firms take a more strategic approach, taking an active business decision to hire agency workers either extensively or exclusively for certain roles. READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Pay Counting the hours: two decades of changes in earnings and hours worked 15 January 2018 by Stephen Clarke and George Bangham Economists have raised concerns that the UK’s pay distribution is ‘hollowing out’, as offshoring and automation diminish the number of mid-paid jobs. We show that some hollowing out has occurred, though only among men, and that it is mainly the result of shifts in working hours rather than occupational change. READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Welfare Falling through the cracks: the widening gap between unemployment and benefit statistics 2 January 2018 by Toby Phillips This paper explores the growing group of people who appear to be eligible for benefits but don’t claim support, providing suggestions for how data collection and benefits processes should be improved. READ MORE
Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Pay The RF Earnings Outlook Q3 2017 27 December 2017 by Stephen Clarke Our quarterly earnings outlook, for 2017 Q3. We argued that, just as the country’s politics were (/are!) in standstill due to Brexit, 2018 was likely to be a ‘standstill’ year on pay. READ MORE
