Jobs· Labour market· Time use The times they aren’t a-changin’ Why working hours have stopped falling in London and the UK 18 January 2020 by George Bangham For the typical British adult, paid work takes up more time than any other activity save sleep. How many hours someone works per week is important both for their family’s income and for the way they live their lives. Over the past 200 years average working hours have gradually declined, so that the typical worker … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Job quality and security· Low pay· Minimum wage· Living Wage Under the wage floor Exploring firms’ incentives to comply with the minimum wage 8 January 2020 by Lindsay Judge and Anna Stansbury This briefing note explores the incentives for firms to comply with the National Living Wage/National Minimum Wage (NLW/NMW). It documents the penalties that firms are subject to; estimates underpaying firms’ rate of detection; and shows that even if detection rates were significantly increased, they would need to go hand-in-hand with higher financial penalties to provide firms with a hard economic incentive to comply with the NLW/NMW. READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Intergenerational Centre Never ever Exploring the increase in people who’ve never had a paid job 4 January 2020 by Laura Gardiner This briefing note explores why, despite record-high employment, the proportion of working-age adults who have never had a paid job has increased, pointing to a reduction in ‘earning while learning’ as a key driver. READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Job quality and security· Pay The Resolution Foundation Earnings Outlook Q3 2019 27 December 2019 by Nye Cominetti and Jack Leslie Unlike our politics, 2019 was a year of strength and stability in the labour market – a year when employment reached and stayed at record highs and pay growth neared pre-recession levels. The most recent set of labour market data (for the three months to October) underlined this – the 16-64 employment rate ticked up … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Low pay· Pay· Minimum wage· Living Wage Ain’t no minimum high enough Minimum wage policy in the 2019 General Election 18 November 2019 by Nye Cominetti Summary Minimum wage increases since 2015 delivered a £3bn pay boost to low-paid workers last year – highlighting the benefits of cross-party consensus over a more ambitious wage floor. Both main parties are right to propose plans for an even higher wage floor, but should proceed carefully, and be prepared to change course if needed. … Continued READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Job quality and security· Pay More than we bargain for Learning from new debates on how institutions can improve worker pay and security in Anglo-Saxon economies 15 November 2019 by Daniel Tomlinson The UK’s tight labour market is delivering improvements for many, but big challenges remain that current policies and debates aren’t yet rising to meet. The UK can learn from emerging discussions and policy innovations in other Anglo-Saxon economies. READ MORE
Incomes· Jobs· Labour market· Job quality and security· Low pay· Pay Feel poor, work more Explaining the UK’s record employment 12 November 2019 by Torsten Bell and Laura Gardiner There is no bigger change to our economy over the past decade than the employment boom. We argue that this has been driven by the deep post-crisis income squeeze. This pushed up labour supply via more workers, and a pause in the long-term decline in working hours. READ MORE
Jobs· Earnings Outlook· Labour market· Low pay· Pay The Resolution Foundation Earnings Outlook Q2 2019 7 November 2019 by Nye Cominetti and Jack Leslie In our Earnings Outlook for 2019 Q2 we suggest that the UK’s 12 year long pay squeeze may be about to come to an end, just in time for the election. But for many groups, typical pay is still well below its previous peak, READ MORE
Jobs· Labour market· Job 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
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 Q2 2019 29 July 2019 by Nye Cominetti and Jack Leslie In our Earnings Outlook for 2019 Q2 we suggest that the UK’s 12 year long pay squeeze may be about to come to an end, just in time for the election. However, we also note that for many groups, typical pay is still well below its previous peak, and that although we will soon hit … 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 by Nye Cominetti 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· Job 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· Job 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
