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IER's Dr Sangwoo LeeLink opens in a new window and Prof Chris WarhurstLink opens in a new window, alongside Prof Angela Knox Link opens in a new window(University of Sydney) and Dr Sally Wright (University of Sheffield), have published a new article titled "". It draws on survey data from 427 Australian hospitality workers to examine how six dimensions of job quality relate to workers' self-rated general health, and whether these relationships vary by gender.

The findings point to the need for structural, job-level interventions, for instance, stronger workplace representation, reduced employment insecurity, expanded training and progression, and improved pay, alongside gender-sensitive measures targeting autonomy for female workers and social support for male workers.

±õ·¡¸é’s Dr Sangwoo Lee recently shared insights at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2026 conference in Los Angeles and at the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) 2026 conference in Oxford, challenging traditional views on the value of a university degree.

His research, "Beyond Earnings: The Multidimensional Job Quality Premiums for University Graduates in Europe," explores whether higher education truly delivers better working conditions across non-monetary dimensions.

At the end of January, Professor Peter Elias, CBE and Prof Chris Warhurst of IER attended the 3rd Global Labour Markets Conference (GLMC) in Riyadh. There were over 5000 delegates at the conference. Now an annual event, the GLMC is a bit like Davos for labour markets, attended by lots of government ministers, company CEOs and senior trade union officials.

Drawing on his recent experience of co-developing the UK Standard Skills Classification, Peter was asked to talk about how skills could be measured. Chris was asked to talk about policy development to help support the business case for good jobs.

It’s been a good year for good jobs policy

IER was established 45 years ago with funding from the UK Government and what is now the European Commission. Its task then was to provide labour market forecasts to support policymaking. Although government emphasis on skills has remained constant, government interest in employment policy more broadly has waxed and waned over the years.

How do we define a 'bad job'? Moving beyond arbitrary thresholds, a new study published in The Economic and Labour Relations Review applies a novel wellbeing-based methodology to identify bad jobs in South Korea's labour market. Using Korean Working Conditions Survey data (2014-2023), IER's Dr Sangwoo Lee and Emeritus Professor Francis Green (UCL Institute of Education) demonstrate that workers in the bottom decile of job quality experience distinctly larger wellbeing gains when moving above this threshold – providing empirical justification for defining these as 'bad jobs'.