Overview

This article takes a short personal ‘helicopter ride’ over the main policy issues in the UK labour market, putting them into the context of the developments which have taken place in applied econometrics. We overview NIESR’s role in the study of labour economics in postwar Britain and review some recent advances of importance in the current NIESR research agenda.

Commissioned by the Office of Manpower Economics, the purpose of this report was to better understand the use of agency staff in the UK public sector, particularly in health and education. The research aimed to outline and improve the evidence base, in order to understand the labour market for agency staff and how it is determined by pay, demand and supply.

The purpose of the analysis upon which this report is based was to estimate the impact of participation in the initial phase of the Troubled Families programme on a range of outcomes encompassing benefit receipt, employment, educational participation, child welfare and offending. This analysis estimates the impact of programme participation on these outcomes, relative to non-participation.

The lower educational achievement of White working class pupils in comparison with children from other ethnic backgrounds with similar socio-economic status continues to attract attention. This report, commissioned by the Department for Education, provides a review of the evidence. It explores why pupils in some ethnic groups appear to be more resilient to the pressures of poverty on educational attainment, compared with White British pupils.