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Tag Archives for: "work & pensions"
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Women working from a home office, looking at a monitor, with laptop open to her left.

Working at home or living at work?

Headshot of Afshan Iqbal By Afshan Iqbal Filed Under: All posts, Work Posted: April 30, 2025

Changes in working patterns were accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote and hybrid work arrangements have resulted in expectations on employers to reconsider their business continuity and operational strategies. The impacts of these new working patterns on employees’ physical and mental health are still being explored. In this article, Dr Afshan Iqbal assesses the challenges […]

Tagged With: AMBS, digital, infrastructure, mental health, productivity, welfare, work & pensions

Back view of a female pharmacist standing in front of medicine shelves and holding medicine.

Enabling Pharmacy First: overcoming recruitment and retention challenges in the pharmacy workforce

Ellen headshot By Imelda McDermott and Ellen Schafheutle Filed Under: Health and Care, Health and Social Care Posted: April 24, 2025

The community pharmacy sector is set to play an increasingly important role in integrated primary care, exemplified through Pharmacy First. Through this drive to relieve pressure on other areas of primary care, both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians assume expanded roles and greater responsibilities. However, the vacancy rate amongst pharmacy technicians in particular risks undermining policies […]

Tagged With: care quality, Health & Social Care, labour market, NHS, SHS, work & pensions

Woman working in a warehouse moving boxes

Employing a fairer system – improving the labour market for vulnerable groups

Jill Rubery By Mat Johnson, Jill Rubery and Eva Herman Filed Under: All posts, UK economy, Work Posted: March 10, 2025

The Employment Rights Bill sets out proposals to strengthen labour market protections, reduce welfare spending and tackle economic inactivity. It is positioned as a mechanism to deliver the broader policy objective to ‘make work pay’, which includes supply-side reforms designed to tackle unemployment and labour market inactivity. In this article, Mat Johnson, Jill Rubery and […]

Tagged With: economy, WEI, welfare, work & pensions

Woman delivering medications

Don’t worry about the future, what about the ‘now of work’?

By Mat Johnson and Eva Herman Filed Under: All posts, Growth and Inclusion, UK economy, Work Posted: March 5, 2024

Amongst all the competing predictions about what the future of work might hold, the challenges of achieving decent work in the foundational economy have been largely overlooked. Here, Dr Mat Johnson and Dr Eva Herman argue that the focus should be on making tangible improvements to the working lives of those in the frontline roles that keep […]

Tagged With: #WorkingFutures, Health & Social Care, labour market, productivity, technology, work & pensions

Re-skilling places: A new approach for reducing regional inequalities

Headshot of Eric Lybeck By Eric Lybeck Filed Under: All posts, British Politics, Devo, Education, Growth and Inclusion, Inclusive Growth, Levelling up Posted: October 5, 2023

Current models of education and social mobility take an individualist approach that encourage young people from rural areas and small towns to move to city centres to obtain qualifications and skills. But this approach worsens regional inequalities, as places outside of urban centres are left behind. In this article, from our Power in Place publication, […]

Tagged With: #PowerinPlace, Business Energy & Industry, Children & Young People, communities, devolution, economy, education, GMCA, Greater Manchester, inclusive growth, Industry 4.0, inequalities, labour market, Levelling Up, local government, MIE, productivity, schools, urban, work & pensions

women in the workplace

Gender equality and the productivity agenda

Jill Rubery By Jill Rubery Filed Under: Education, Growth and Inclusion, OnProductivity, UK economy Posted: August 24, 2022

The implications for gender equality are rarely discussed in the new productivity and levelling up agenda. It is key for productivity and levelling up policy agendas to address the underutilisation of women’s potential and the undervaluation of women’s work. In this blog, Professor Jill Rubery from the Work Equalities Institute investigates the underutilisation of women […]

Tagged With: gender inequalities, inequalities, Levelling Up, OnProductivity, productivity, work & pensions

Making light work: Recommendations for healthy lighting

By Rob Lucas and Tim Brown Filed Under: Cities and Environment, Health and Care, Science and Technology, Urban Posted: June 7, 2022

Light exposure has important effects on human health and wellbeing, regulating our sleep/wake cycles, and influencing our mental and physical health. Advances in our understanding of the role of light in health, and emerging lighting technologies, now present opportunities to adjust lighting to promote optimal physical and mental health and performance. In this blog, Professor […]

Tagged With: Ashton Institute, Children & Young People, energy, Health & Safety, Health & Social Care, housing, infrastructure, justice, mental health, MERI, NHS, older people, productivity, SBS, SMS, technology, wellbeing, work & pensions

Public transport and the pandemic: perceptions of risk and mitigation

By Anna Coleman and Nicola Gartland Filed Under: All posts, Cities and Environment, Health and Care, Urban Posted: March 14, 2022

Throughout the pandemic, public transport has been identified as a significant potential hub of transmission for the disease, with messaging urging people to avoid it wherever possible. Despite this guidance, however, there was little evidence on how great this risk was, or the effectiveness of mitigation measures such as masks and ventilation. In this blog, […]

Tagged With: #IHPO, AMBS, Ashton Institute, COVID-19, Health & Safety, public health, SHS, trade unions, transport, urban, work & pensions

A man turns wooden number blocks to reveal the phrase '2021 BUDGET' against a black background

The Levelling-up Budget?

By Marianne Sensier Filed Under: All posts, British Politics, Budget, Growth and Inclusion, Inclusive Growth, News Posted: March 4, 2021

The Conservative Government’s 2019 general election manifesto included a promise to ‘listen to the people who have felt left behind’. There was also a commitment in the Budget 2020 to drive economic growth sustainably and improve living standards by boosting productivity and levelling up skills across the UK, along with future commitments to increase investment […]

Tagged With: AMBS, british politics, Business Energy & Industry, communities, economy, employment, inclusive growth, inequalities, inequality, infrastructure, labour market, Levelling Up, productivity, science & engineering, transport, Treasury, work & pensions

Recognising the role of key workers now and in the future employment landscape

Miguel Martínez Lucio By Gail Hebson and Miguel Martínez Lucio Filed Under: All posts, Growth and Inclusion, Inclusive Growth Posted: August 18, 2020

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the country has become more aware and appreciative of the workers now called ‘key workers’. However, organisational change and deregulation over recent years has led to high levels of job degradation in key work sectors. In this blog, Gail Hebson and Miguel Martínez Lucio introduce and present research from a range […]

Tagged With: ageing, COVID-19, digital, employment, equalities, equality, gig economy, Health & Social Care, inclusive growth, inequalities, inequality, Key workers, micra, older people, older workers, Pandemic, productivity, public health, Trade Unions Labour Market, transport, WEI, welfare, work & pensions

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