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...

Effort-biased technological change and other explanations for work intensification are investigated. It is hypothesised that technological and organizational changes are one important source of work intensification and supportive evidence is found using establishment data for Britain in the...

The concept of a firm's human capital is reconsidered to include both the technical and the social skills of its workforce. Technical skills are defined by the ability to turn inputs into outputs, and measured by the productivity of unit labour effort. Social skills are defined by the propensity...

The authors test for the presence of a "worker discipline effect," wherein macroeconomic conditions influence worker effort, and examine interindustry variation in its strength. An employment function analysis is first used to find evidence of a worker discipline effect in the majority of U.S....

There is a perception among some commentators and policy analysts that leadership and managerial practices in private schools are superior to those in state schools. Analysing a survey of workplaces in Britain, we find little evidence to support this contention when examining the prevalence of...

The fear of unemployment has increased around the world in the wake of Covid-19. Research has shown that job insecurity affects both mental and physical health, though the effects are lower when employees are easily re-employable. The detrimental effects of job insecurity could be partly...

This review examines the concept of the quality of work and employment (QWE), including both 'Decent Work' and the narrower concept of 'job quality'. The key axiom is that 'quality' relates to the extent and manner in which working conditions meet people's needs from work. The review emphasises...

For most students the aspiration to gain employment in a graduate job is the main motivation for going to university. Whether they fulfil this aspiration depends considerably on national graduate labour markets. We analyse the comparative evolution of these markets across Europe over the decade...

We examine the job quality effects of new digital technologies in Europe, using the framework of seven job quality 'domains': pay, working time quality, prospects, skills and discretion, work intensity, social environment and physical environment. The theoretical effects from new technology are...

In 1996 and 1997, approximately 1 in 10 British workers thought that it was either likely or very likely that they would lose their job within 12 months. Increased job insecurity has been touted as a possible cause for the decline of equilibrium unemployment in Britain and the United States...