ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½

A new IER report produced for the Social Mobility Commission, ‘The adult skills gap: Is falling investment in UK adults stalling social mobility?’, discusses the landscape of adult skills and participation in training in the UK. It finds evidence of ‘vicious’ and ‘virtuous’ circles of training, whereby those with low or no qualifications are much less likely to access education and training after leaving school compared to those with high qualifications. The report also highlights that UK investment in training is low by international standards. This leaves big questions about how the government, employers, and society more broadly can ensure better prospects for people from disadvantaged backgrounds..

The report was launched on the 29th of January 2019. Its findings were covered by the Financial Times and the Independent, and were discussed on The Today Programme.

The report, co-authored by Dr Daria Luchinskaya and Peter Dickinson can be accessed . For more information about the project, please see the IER project page. The Social Mobility Commission press release is available .

The latest set of Cedefop Pan-European Skill projections has just been published:

IER has been involved in producing these comprehensive and detailed forecasts since their inception in 2005. The latest project which runs until 2020 is now being led by our long standing partners Cambridge Econometrics.

In mid-January IER will host a meeting of the Working Life Engagement and Improvement Group. The group was established in 2018 by social scientists committed to using insights from social science to advance the quality of jobs and working life in the UK.

For further details contact: c.warhurst@warwick.ac.uk.

Gaby Atfield was invited to give a keynote speech at Talent Match Staffordshire's conference and awards ceremony in Lichfield on 22nd November 2018. Talent Match is a five-year, £108m Big Lottery-funded programme supporting young people who are furthest from the labour market, including hidden NEETs who are completely outside the benefits, work and training system, gain the skills they need to get into employment.

IER, in partnership with CRESR at Sheffield Hallam University, City-REDI at Birmingham University and Cambridge Economic Associates, have been evaluating the programme across the 21 youth unemployment hotspots in England since 2014.

The presentation on findings from the national evaluation can be found .

Dr Heike Behle delivered a keynote on ‘Employability as an outcome of tourism education beyond TEF: Theoretical conceptualisation and measurement’ at the Association For Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) conference on ' on 6th December 20018 at Leeds Beckett University.