IER News & blogs
Futuretrack Findings
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..!”
Cedefop Publishes Forecasting Reports
Today sees the publication of two reports by Cedefop, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training. These reports are the latest in a series of publications from a 4-year skills demand and supply forecasting project led by IER’s Rob Wilson, working in collaboration with Cedefop and a consortium of partners across Europe.
The latest produced for Cedefop aim to provide evidence on future labour market developments to help to make informed decisions. The main findings of the latest skill demand and supply forecast for the European Union for 2010-20 indicate that although the economic conditions will determine only a modest increase in job openings, current trends, including a shift to more skill-intensive jobs, a demand for people to be better qualified and more jobs in services, will continue.
The provides an overview of the methodological framework used to underpin the skills forecasting project.
Research by IER's Terence Hogarth and Lynn Gambin has been cited in the Richard Review, a report on the future of apprenticeships published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Work in this area, carried out by IER over the past 15 years, has demonstrated that apprenticeships are more beneficial to employers and employees than any other vocational training programme.
The UK labour market has become more challenging for all jobseekers, with unemployment particularly high among young people and those with limited education and skills. Research published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation describes the difficulty of job searching for young people seeking low-skilled work, examining three contrasting local labour market areas in England and Wales.
The report was co-authored by Professor Becky Tunstall (University of York) and Professor Anne Green (IER), Ruth Lupton, Simon Watmough and Katie Bates (LSE).
The Nominet Trust has published a state of the art review undertaken by IER on Employment and the Internet. The report provides a baseline of data around employment and digital technology, mapping emerging employment patterns that may provide opportunities to rethink how we address current levels of unemployment and underemployment.
The report is available to download from the .