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A new report from IER provides an explanation for the decline in the number of apprenticeships starts following the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017. The research, funded by the Edge Foundation and Gatsby Foundation, was based on reviewing statistical evidence, and conducting interviews with a range of employers to find out how their apprenticeship recruitment had changed following the Levy’s introduction.

The report’s authors – Peter Dickinson and Terence Hogarth – explain the fall in the number of apprenticeship starts with reference to an increasing preference for employers to place people on relatively high level and more costly apprenticeships, and a fall in the number of apprentices being taken on in smaller, non-Levy paying enterprises. There are some transitional effects as well which are likely to be smoothed out with the passage of time.

The executive summary of the report is available along with the short report and the long report. Read Peter Dickinson's article in the HR Director .

Based on research with 85 creative freelancers in Coventry, Northumberland and Waltham Forest, the report ' provides detail on the contribution of creative freelancers to the economic, societal and place-based impacts of the creative industries.

As the research, led by Coventry University, was undertaken in 2020 throughout the lockdowns, the report also identifies the impact of the pandemic on one of the most vulnerable groups of workers and sectors affected by Covid-19.

This report provides:

• the range of value generation for the economy and for society of creative freelancing,
• a typology of creative freelancers based on their generation of different types of value, and
• policy directions to support the full and sustainable contribution to economy, society and places of creative freelancing.

ReWAGE – Renewing Work Advisory Group of Experts – has launched. Hosted by IER with the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change () at Leeds University, it is an expert advisory group to support the government’s strategic response to the recovery and renewal of work and employment in the UK post-Covid. It will sit into 2022.

It will produce evidence papers, policy briefings and reports for government on specialist topics important for maintaining existing jobs, creating new and better jobs and ensuring a return to a well-functioning labour market. Contact ReWAGE for more information.

In a recent webinar, hosted by the Productivity and the Futures of Work GRP at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ and facilitated by IER’s Professor Chris Warhurst, of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission examined how Covid-19 had changed the profile of the teleworker and what it meant for the future of work. The recording of the webinar is accessible via the replay link.

The publication of the Futuretrack Stage 5 study conducted in 2019, led by Professors Peter Elias and Kate Purcell and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, showed ‘how the majority of graduates had by then achieved reasonable job security, with many balancing work and parenting or other caring roles when the pandemic hit’ (see press release). In 2020, the research team went back to respondents to investigate how they had been affected by the Covid restrictions and economic impact and conducted Futuretrack Stage 6.

For full details of the research see:

• the report on the Covid-19 impact: Covid 19 and graduate careers
• a slightly revised version of the report published in March 2021: Ten Years On – the Futuretrack Graduates
• a short report that summarises and draws the implications of both the above What a difference a year makes: the impact of Covid 19 on graduate careers