Key findings

  • The decline in the performance of the region relative to the UK and London needs to be halted
  • Although it can provide flexibility for some workers, more needs to be done to address ‘atypical’ work
  • The pay squeeze means that living standards are stagnating in the region
  • Encouraging progression in a world where pay differentials are compressed at the bottom of the labour market
  • Tackling occupational polarisation for younger workers

Further reading

Uneven steps
Changes in youth unemployment and study since the onset of Covid-19
·
Kathleen Henehan
Migration during the pandemic
Have 1.3 million migrants really left the country?
·
Greg Thwaites
Earnings Outlook Q1 2021
Earnings in the Covid-19 crisis
·
Hannah Slaughter
Stephen Clarke
Stephen Clarke Senior Economic Analyst