‘Idleness’ and a new approach to employment policy

Q4 Social Sciences
Katy Jones
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The UK is stuck in a low-pay, low-productivity rut, but the political rhetoric on both sides has not caught up.</p><p>A key factor underlying our underperforming labour market is power. It's something that unemployed people and low-paid workers are sorely lacking. The balance of power between workers and employers has also shifted decisively towards the latter. People are forced into taking jobs that don't match their skills and needs, trapped by both a lack of progression opportunities within their current workplace, but also a lack of alternative jobs that offer a better future. Employers have no incentive to improve job quality if they know their workers have few alternatives.</p><p>The state should play a key role in redressing this power imbalance. Being pro-economy isn't necessarily being pro-business, and government should be backing and investing in the unemployed and low paid, rather than treating them as a problem to be managed. But in our book we show that time and again, in policy areas as diverse as unemployment, childcare, transport, skills and regulation, the state conspires to constrain the labour supply of low-paid workers and reduces their power to reject poor quality work.</p><p>Our employment service needs urgent reform. For a long time, it has been unashamedly characterized as a “great big nagging service”,2 enforced through punitive sanctions and designed to make unemployment more uncomfortable than it already is.</p><p>Reform of this problematic approach has been needed for a long time. But at this juncture, when the DWP is beginning to think about engaging with people in work (an unprecedented shift made possible through universal credit's merging of in- and out-of-work benefits), policymakers need to recognise that we’ve reached the end of the road.</p><p>More of the same: a ‘work first, then work more’ approach, which simply requires workers to take on more work, while at the same time doing nothing about the quality of jobs available, just places more pressure on precarious workers. Employers don't welcome this approach either, voicing concerns about the adverse impact this could have on staff wellbeing and performance. 6</p><p>We urgently need a shift to a support-based system that empowers people to access quality opportunities and support genuine prospects for progression. The key objective should not be moving people into any work, but to ensure that, where work is appropriate, people are supported into decent and productive work where their skills and capabilities will be developed and used effectively, and in which they can maximize their potential. This is the human capital approach: helping people to build a satisfying and productive career, not take on any job at any cost.</p><p>Part of this means ensuring the employment and skills systems work effectively together. Adult learning participation has fallen off a cliff, almost halving over the past decade.7 Employers are shirking their responsibilities here, however the state also has a role in supporting people to access the training opportunities that could help them to progress. But the proportion of benefit spells including training has plateaued at just over 6 per cent – and only 6 per cent of those starting apprenticeships had been claiming benefits in the six months prior, down from 14 per cent in 2013/14. These are baffling statistics given both systems share a core aim of supporting people to move into and progress in work. However, they further expose the short-sightedness of the ‘work first’ approach: time spent learning and developing new skills is time not spent applying for and being available for work. This is despite international evidence which shows that such human capital development approaches have better long-term employment outcomes.8</p><p>It is clear that policymakers must shift their priorities from short-term reductions in the benefits bill to aiming for a world-leading employment and skills service that will meet the needs of the labour market of the future. “But this costs money!”, is often the immediate response to these kinds of suggestions. Indeed, it may well do in the short run, but in the longer run there are higher payoffs for people, businesses and the economy. Policymakers need to wake up to this. Investment in people is both worthwhile and long overdue.</p><p>If policymakers are serious about getting us out of this low-pay, low-productivity rut, they need to start backing up these sentiments with real action on the range of policy areas that currently work to undermine, rather than empower, workers, and help them to thrive in the UK labour market.</p>","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12327","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IPPR Progressive Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/newe.12327","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

It is 80 years since Beveridge took on what he called the ‘five giants’ of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. His report has shaped British politics and society ever since its publication. As part of a project to assess where we stand today, Ashwin Kumar and I were commissioned to explore ‘idleness’.1 Is it a problem today? And if so, what should be done about it?

For Beveridge, who was writing after two decades of high unemployment, the problem was one of worklessness and a lack of jobs for male breadwinners. Today our labour market is very different: rates of employment are historically high, many more women are in paid work, but alongside this we have record levels of in-work poverty and endemic labour market inequalities along the lines of gender, ethnicity and disability. The UK is stuck in a low-pay, low-productivity rut, but the political rhetoric on both sides has not caught up.

A key factor underlying our underperforming labour market is power. It's something that unemployed people and low-paid workers are sorely lacking. The balance of power between workers and employers has also shifted decisively towards the latter. People are forced into taking jobs that don't match their skills and needs, trapped by both a lack of progression opportunities within their current workplace, but also a lack of alternative jobs that offer a better future. Employers have no incentive to improve job quality if they know their workers have few alternatives.

The state should play a key role in redressing this power imbalance. Being pro-economy isn't necessarily being pro-business, and government should be backing and investing in the unemployed and low paid, rather than treating them as a problem to be managed. But in our book we show that time and again, in policy areas as diverse as unemployment, childcare, transport, skills and regulation, the state conspires to constrain the labour supply of low-paid workers and reduces their power to reject poor quality work.

Our employment service needs urgent reform. For a long time, it has been unashamedly characterized as a “great big nagging service”,2 enforced through punitive sanctions and designed to make unemployment more uncomfortable than it already is.

Reform of this problematic approach has been needed for a long time. But at this juncture, when the DWP is beginning to think about engaging with people in work (an unprecedented shift made possible through universal credit's merging of in- and out-of-work benefits), policymakers need to recognise that we’ve reached the end of the road.

More of the same: a ‘work first, then work more’ approach, which simply requires workers to take on more work, while at the same time doing nothing about the quality of jobs available, just places more pressure on precarious workers. Employers don't welcome this approach either, voicing concerns about the adverse impact this could have on staff wellbeing and performance. 6

We urgently need a shift to a support-based system that empowers people to access quality opportunities and support genuine prospects for progression. The key objective should not be moving people into any work, but to ensure that, where work is appropriate, people are supported into decent and productive work where their skills and capabilities will be developed and used effectively, and in which they can maximize their potential. This is the human capital approach: helping people to build a satisfying and productive career, not take on any job at any cost.

Part of this means ensuring the employment and skills systems work effectively together. Adult learning participation has fallen off a cliff, almost halving over the past decade.7 Employers are shirking their responsibilities here, however the state also has a role in supporting people to access the training opportunities that could help them to progress. But the proportion of benefit spells including training has plateaued at just over 6 per cent – and only 6 per cent of those starting apprenticeships had been claiming benefits in the six months prior, down from 14 per cent in 2013/14. These are baffling statistics given both systems share a core aim of supporting people to move into and progress in work. However, they further expose the short-sightedness of the ‘work first’ approach: time spent learning and developing new skills is time not spent applying for and being available for work. This is despite international evidence which shows that such human capital development approaches have better long-term employment outcomes.8

It is clear that policymakers must shift their priorities from short-term reductions in the benefits bill to aiming for a world-leading employment and skills service that will meet the needs of the labour market of the future. “But this costs money!”, is often the immediate response to these kinds of suggestions. Indeed, it may well do in the short run, but in the longer run there are higher payoffs for people, businesses and the economy. Policymakers need to wake up to this. Investment in people is both worthwhile and long overdue.

If policymakers are serious about getting us out of this low-pay, low-productivity rut, they need to start backing up these sentiments with real action on the range of policy areas that currently work to undermine, rather than empower, workers, and help them to thrive in the UK labour market.

“失业”与就业政策新思路
80年前,贝弗里奇(Beveridge)对他所称的匮乏、疾病、无知、肮脏和懒惰的“五大巨人”进行了抨击。自他的报告发表以来,一直影响着英国的政治和社会。作为评估我们现状的一个项目的一部分,Ashwin Kumar和我被委托去探索“懒惰”这在今天是个问题吗?如果是这样,我们应该做些什么呢?贝弗里奇是在经历了20年的高失业率之后写这篇文章的。他认为,问题是失业和缺乏养家糊口的男性工作。如今,我们的劳动力市场已大不相同:就业率处于历史高位,从事有偿工作的女性人数大幅增加,但与此同时,我们的在职贫困率也达到了创纪录水平,劳动力市场普遍存在性别、种族和残疾方面的不平等。英国陷入了低工资、低生产率的泥潭,但双方的政治言论都没有跟上。导致我们劳动力市场表现不佳的一个关键因素是权力。这是失业人员和低收入工人极度缺乏的东西。工人和雇主之间的权力平衡也果断地向后者倾斜。人们被迫从事与他们的技能和需求不匹配的工作,既因为在目前的工作场所缺乏晋升机会,也因为缺乏能提供更好未来的替代工作。如果雇主知道自己的员工别无选择,他们就没有动力提高工作质量。国家应该在纠正这种权力不平衡方面发挥关键作用。支持经济并不一定支持商业,政府应该支持和投资失业者和低收入者,而不是把他们当作一个需要管理的问题。但在我们的书中,我们一次又一次地表明,在失业、儿童保育、交通、技能和监管等多种政策领域,国家合谋限制低薪工人的劳动力供应,并削弱他们拒绝低质量工作的权力。我们的就业服务急需改革。长期以来,它一直被毫不掩饰地描述为“巨大的唠叨服务”,2通过惩罚性制裁强制执行,旨在使失业状况比现在更令人不安。长期以来,这种有问题的做法一直需要改革。但在这个关键时刻,当DWP开始考虑与在职人员接触时(这是一种前所未有的转变,通过通用信贷将在职和失业福利合并在一起而成为可能),政策制定者需要认识到,我们已经走到了尽头。更多的是千篇一律:“先工作,再工作”的方法,只是要求工人承担更多的工作,同时对现有工作的质量毫无作为,只会给不稳定的工人带来更大的压力。雇主们也不欢迎这种做法,担心这会对员工的健康和绩效产生不利影响。我们迫切需要转向一个以支持为基础的系统,使人们能够获得高质量的机会,并支持真正的进步前景。关键目标不应是让人们从事任何工作,而应确保在适当的工作中,支持人们从事体面和富有成效的工作,使他们的技能和能力得到发展和有效利用,并使他们能够最大限度地发挥潜力。这就是人力资本的方法:帮助人们建立一个令人满意和富有成效的职业生涯,而不是不惜一切代价接受任何工作。这在一定程度上意味着确保就业和技能系统有效地协同工作。成人的学习参与率急剧下降,在过去十年中几乎减半雇主们在逃避他们的责任,然而国家在支持人们获得培训机会以帮助他们进步方面也发挥着作用。但包括培训在内的福利项目所占比例已经稳定在略高于6%的水平,而且在之前的6个月里,只有6%的开始学徒生涯的人申请了福利,低于2013/14年度的14%。这些统计数据令人费解,因为这两个系统都有一个共同的核心目标,即支持人们进入工作岗位并在工作中取得进步。然而,他们进一步暴露了“工作第一”方法的短视:花在学习和发展新技能上的时间不是花在申请和工作上的时间。尽管国际证据表明,这种人力资本开发方法具有更好的长期就业结果。很明显,政策制定者必须将他们的优先事项从短期削减福利账单转移到致力于世界领先的就业和技能服务,以满足未来劳动力市场的需求。“但是这要花钱啊!”,通常是对这类建议的直接反应。 的确,在短期内,它可能会很好地发挥作用,但从长期来看,对个人、企业和经济都有更高的回报。政策制定者需要意识到这一点。对人的投资是值得的,也是早就应该进行的。如果政策制定者真的想让我们摆脱低工资、低生产率的困境,他们就需要开始在一系列政策领域采取实际行动来支持这些情绪,这些政策领域目前正在削弱(而不是增强)工人的能力,并帮助他们在英国劳动力市场上茁壮成长。
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来源期刊
IPPR Progressive Review
IPPR Progressive Review Social Sciences-Political Science and International Relations
CiteScore
0.50
自引率
0.00%
发文量
43
期刊介绍: The permafrost of no alternatives has cracked; the horizon of political possibilities is expanding. IPPR Progressive Review is a pluralistic space to debate where next for progressives, examine the opportunities and challenges confronting us and ask the big questions facing our politics: transforming a failed economic model, renewing a frayed social contract, building a new relationship with Europe. Publishing the best writing in economics, politics and culture, IPPR Progressive Review explores how we can best build a more equal, humane and prosperous society.
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