Publications

The economic situation continued to be dominated by sovereign debt problems in the eurozone countries. As these continued to remain unresolved, general sentiment had turned negative amid fears of a new second phase of the Great Recession of 2008–9. Growth outlooks in the developed economies had recently been scaled back with below trend growth forecast for 2011–12. Austerity programmes, which had begun to negatively impact public employment, especially in local and central government administrations, had not thus far been accompanied by the hoped-for handover from public to private demand. Within the EU, there were a number of different labour market stories reflecting very different trajectories during and after the 2008–9 crisis. Unemployment in Spain and Ireland continued to rise while other countries severely affected by the crisis – notably the Baltic states – showed signs of a strong recovery. The German unemployment rate was at its lowest level in nearly twenty years (6%) despite a recent easing of growth while the UK unemployment rates were at an eighteen-year high (8.1%). Meanwhile in Greece unemployment had risen by 4 percentage points in the last twelve months.

IES Annual Review 2011

This paper explores the relationship between productivity growth and wage growth and its importance for employment outcomes, drawing on two main sources: a review of the economic literature and an analysis of international data.

This report is based on secondary data analysis of Eurofound’s European Company Survey (ECS) 2009. It explores the links between a broad range of workplace practices and sustainable organisational performance, building on the survey report. The report develops a theoretical and analytical framework against which questions from the ECS are mapped and then subjected to a range of multivariate analyses.

With a particular focus on the crisis and responses to it, this annual review highlights developments in working conditions and industrial relations in the EU Member States and Norway in 2010, both at national and EU level.

The HSE commissioned this research into leadership and worker involvement across projects on the Olympic Park to understand the degree to which approaches impacted positively or negatively and could be transferable to other construction projects and industries. This research project sought to explore the range of initiatives and approaches used, their impact on worker involvement, attitudes and behaviours, and other desired outcomes and the context in which they were effective or ineffective.

There continues to be a lively debate in organisations about whether to seek the views of customers about HR (and which customers to ask) and, if so, how to go about it. By talking to a number of different organisations, IES researchers looked at why they chose to do so, and the varying methods used.

This report sets out the results of a small-scale research project commissioned by Acas examining the implications of social networking and mobile information and communications technologies (ICT) for employment relations.

This report presents final findings from the evaluation of the ‘Work-Focused Services in Children’s Centres’ Pilot. A baseline and interim evaluation report have already been published. This final report builds on all the findings from these previous evaluation reports and research components, as well as Management Information.

This report presents findings from a two-wave survey of people who claimed ESA between April and June 2009. It examines the social characteristics of ESA claimants and their employment trajectories over a period of approximately 18 months. The aim of the report is to provide information about who flows onto, and off ESA and the reasons for doing so.