This article examines the impact of the 2008–9 recession on training activity in the UK. In international terms, the UK is assumed to have a deregulated training market which is sensitive to changing economic conditions. However, national datasets and qualitative interviews suggest that,...

The value that employees attach to the intrinsic aspects of work is important for whether or not job quality issues should have a central place on the social agenda. This article examines whether the importance that British employees attach to intrinsic job quality changed between 1992 and 2006....

Task discretion has held a central place in theories of work organization and the employment relationship. However, there have been sharply differing views about both the factors that determine it and the principal trends over time. Using evidence from three national surveys, this article shows...

It is the conventional wisdom to assume that in the `market model' of training found in Britain, training tends to be curtailed in recessions. Yet national level evidence shows only a small reduction in training during the recession of the early 1990s. Analysis of a survey of employers' training...

It has been argued that workplace skills are becoming more polarised in Britain. This tendency is sometimes considered to be a factor contributing to the process of social exclusion and growing wage inequality. Skill polarisation has therefore been the focus of renewed academic and--since the...

Closing the productivity gap with other nations has become a mantra of public policy in the UK. Promoting participation in learning and training is seen as the principal means of narrowing the gap. While tracking episodes of training is relatively easy, it is not clear what is learnt, by whom...

It is frequently suggested that working at home will be the future of work for many people in the UK and that trends in this direction are already well underway. This paper examines these claims by analysing data from the Labour Force Survey which has, at various times, asked questions about the...

Over the last decade official surveys have recorded a significant leap in the number of people registered as self-employed. However, relatively little research has focused on the relationships under which the self-employed actually work. Those which do, have chosen the manufacturing sector, and...