News & Press

This is a time of great change for the higher education (HE) sector, with reforms to tuition fees and student loans which will see up to a threefold increase in undergraduate fees but for the first time will extend eligibility for student loans to part-time students.

A recent study conducted by IES's work health and well-being researchers investigated experiences of managing cancer in the workplace among smaller employers. The work was commissioned by Macmillan Cancer Support (MCS) to establish whether its 'Working Through Cancer' (WTC) package of support, currently targeted at larger employers, is suitable for use by managers working in small and medium sizes enterprises (SMEs).

With nominally five people chasing every job it is not surprising that skill shortages across the economy are at record lows. However, at sectoral level there are still major concerns that a lack of the right sort of skills in critical areas could hold back economic recovery and damage future UK competitiveness. As consumer demand evolves and technological change creates new markets and ways of working, the skills required to deliver effective performance also change. Employers will increasingly have to find new ways of ensuring that prospective and existing employees possess the required skills.

Recent issues of Employment Studies have focused on how evidence-based policy-making is coming under pressure in the current political and economic climate. In the last issue we noted the increasingly cavalier regard for the existing evidence in the discussion of UK migration policy. Since then, a more egregious example has featured in the policy debate, albeit one which subsequently foundered on the rocks of internal coalition disagreement.