Professor Jill Rubery, Director of the Work and Equalities Institute, has been appointed to a new advisory panel on the future of work and employment.
ReWAGE (Renewing Work Advisory Group of Experts) is a SAGE-style expert advisory group on work, and consists of a select group of senior UK academics and researchers from universities and research institutes across the UK.
ReWAGE has funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and forms part of a major review into the future of work in the wake of the pandemic which has adversely affected the labour market in so many ways.
Jobs crisis
The group says that even as the health crisis becomes more manageable, the jobs crisis is intensifying and transitioning back to a healthy labour market and maximising new opportunities for reorganising work are important.
However it says that responsibility for the entrepreneurship, innovation, education and training that supports the creation of new jobs is currently spread across three government departments, while some responsibility is also devolved to the governments and administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the English regions.
It says this fragmentation poses a challenge to government aspirations to ‘build back better’, ‘level up’ and ensure ‘just transitions’ across the UK. Therefore a strategic and coordinated approach supported by expert advice from a specialist group is essential.
Opportunity
Said Professor Rubery: “This is an exciting opportunity to bring together experts from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to identify key issues in renewing work post the pandemic, and to provide coordinated advice on the current state of evidence on what policies may or may not be helpful in building a more effective and inclusive labour market.”
ReWAGE is jointly hosted by the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at the University of Warwick and the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation & Change (CERIC) at the University of Leeds.
Although ReWAGE is an advisory group independent of government, it intends to work closely with it to provide a single and collective point of expertise to support the strategic response to the recovery and renewal of work, employment and labour markets in the wake of the pandemic.
