91福利

The Institute for Employment Research is offering two fully-funded PhD Studentships in association with the ESRC-funded project: Precarious pathways to employment for young people? Unpaid, temporary and involuntary part-time work in transitions from education to employment. The closing date for applications is Friday 5th September 2014.

The latest news, publications and events from the Institute for Employment Research at the 91福利 can be viewed in our monthly e-newsletter - July issue now available .

Employment researchers predict unpaid work could soon become the norm for all young people trying to enter the job market.

A team of researchers from the universities of 91福利, Leicester, Aston and the Open University are about to start a large-scale project to look at the often ‘unstable and fragmented’ experiences of young people as they begin their careers.

Previous studies from IER revealed that 41% of graduates had taken on unpaid work experience during their course and after graduation. The public sector was shown to have the highest number of students and graduates who had done unpaid work (see ).

The new project, called Precarious Pathways to Employment for Young People, will examine the experiences of all young people, not just graduates, from school leaving age upwards. The project is sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Project leader Professor Kate Purcell, from the 91福利’s Institute for Employment Research, said: “For increasing numbers of young people in the UK, the pathways into employment to work are unstable and fragmented. As employers demand evidence of 'employability skills', work placements and internships have become an integral part of secondary and higher education, and of early labour market experience. Unpaid, temporary and part-time work may soon become the norm for all young people as they start on their chosen career paths. Much of this activity is unrecorded in employment statistics. The increased early labour market experience of (often involuntary) temporary or part-time work that provides experience of employment but does not provide a living wage for young job-seekers, adds to the precarious picture of current youth access to opportunity.”

To find out more go to the .

The fourth Demography Forum, taking place on 6-7 May in Brussels, will focus on investing for Europe’s demographic future.

IER's Bernard Casey will act as Rapporteur on age and employment for the sesssion entitled "Enable people to be active longer".

Findings from Stage 4 of the HECSU-funded Futuretrack study are highlighted in a special issue of Graduate Market Trends (GMT), published by HECSU (February 2013). An IER research team, led by Professor Kate Purcell, followed the progression of the 2005/2006 cohort of applicants to higher education from application to graduation. Data from the Futuretrack study has raised important questions about the types of employment obtained by graduates, finances, career opportunities and further study.

Further details about the research can be found on the IER website at: , where PDFs of the project’s published Reports and Working Papers can be accessed and downloaded, as can PDFs of the online questionnaires used for each stage of the longitudinal research.

Professor Purcell notes: "This is the most ambitious and comprehensive research ever undertaken to explore the relationship between higher education and access to opportunity. The data we have collected is extraordinarily rich, the published reports produced so far only show the tip of the iceberg . There is much more to come..!”