This Research Group will focus on two broad, but closely inter-related themes: 1) The ‘Knowledge-Based Economy’ and Skill Development, and 2) Changing Work Patterns, Social Polarisation and Risks of Marginalisation. The questions that will be explored under the first theme revolve around the following topics: (i) Trends in Skills. Do increasing demands for formal education by employers reflect their importance for productivity, their function as a signal of trainability or their role as a mechanism of social closure to segment the workforce into groups with quite different employment conditions? (ii) Skill Mismatch. How does it relate to the pattern of economic growth and what are its implications for the experience of work and psychological well-being? And (iii) In-Career Training. How are in-career training opportunities distributed across the workforce and what are the implications for the risks of social polarisation and subsequent marginalisation of weaker labour market groups? The questions that will be explored under the second theme will focus on whether the pattern of economic growth is leading to a convergence or a polarisation in the employment and labour market conditions of different sectors of the workforce. These processes are likely to have major implications for risks of marginalisation and social cohesion.
Below you can find the State of the Art Reports of the EMPLOY Research Group:
Michael Tåhlin: Skill change and skill matching in the labour market: A cross-national overview
Martina Dieckhoff: Continuing Training
Duncan Gallie: The Quality of Job Tasks
Neli Demireva: The Labour Market Performance of Ethnic Minority Populations