by Deborah Talbot In the last half-century, advanced industrial nations have seen immense changes in the position of women in society. They have caught up or overtaken boys in educational achievement. They have joined the labour force and all other… Read More ›
Work, employment and society is pleased to announce a forthcoming special issue: In, Against and Beyond Precarity: The Struggles of Insecure Workers The issue will be guest edited by Gabriella Alberti, Ioulia Bessa, Kate Hardy, Vera Trappmann and Charles Umney,… Read More ›
An interesting snippet from Losing The Signal, by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, concerning the lengths to which overzealous mangers would go during the early days of Research In Motion. From pg 39: One RIM manager became so obsessed with… Read More ›
We are seeking 4 committee members to join the Work, employment and society conference committee to serve for two years six months from June 2016 to November 2018. Applications must be submitted by Friday 6 May 2016, 17:00 (GMT). About… Read More ›
Abstract submission closes at midnight on Monday 7 March Work, Employment and Society Conference 2016 ‘Work in Crisis’ Dates: Tuesday 6 – Thursday 8 September 2016 (Postgraduate Workshop: 5 September 2016) Venue: University of Leeds The BSA and the Work, employment… Read More ›
As we enter the second machine age, it’s easy to assume that coding skills will be in ever increasing demand. But this TechCrunch feature suggests both that the skills shortage will likely prove fleeting, due to the impending automation of… Read More ›
An important resource produced by UCU: The guide: outlines the rights of research staff and what they can expect from their institutions offers practical advice on issues including developing your career, workloads and maternity leave suggests ways in which you… Read More ›
Out of curiosity I just searched for ‘internship’ on Unitemps. There are 57 results with intern in the title. There are currently 201 jobs listed on Unitemps. So over 25% of jobs on Unitemps are currently looking for interns. Many… Read More ›
We’ve recently seen an emerging discourse of the ‘second machine age’ considering the potential implications of advances in robots and computational technologies for employment. In a recent London Review of Books essay, John Lanchester offers an insightful overview of this… Read More ›
An interesting though remarkably uncritical discussion of working in the on-demand economy:
An interesting article in the New York Times discusses the mandated enthusiasm which increasingly characterises labour. This can be seen most emphatically in service jobs (e.g. the training required by Pret A Manger and its subsequent monitoring) but it’s also a feature… Read More ›
This Guardian Higher Education articles offers 18 tips for applying for postdoc jobs. There’s some really useful advice supplied for each one, which you can read in full here: Get advice from your PhD supervisor Start building your networks early… Read More ›
Global cities like London have an incessant rhythm of consumption that needs to be maintained around-the-clock. This short film shines a light on the invisible lives of people working at night whilst the majority sleep or enjoy the nocturnal life…. Read More ›
Rosemary Crompton () was a famous British sociologist of work who researched white-collar work, women’s employment, organisational careers and class, cross-national variations in gender relations and related policies and their impacts on employment and family life. Yet, she was – as I… Read More ›
This fascinating article on Jacobin offers an historical persepctive on professional wrestling, a sport that “with its screaming neon lunatics, potbellied big daddies, and tasseled ‘ring rats’, has been considered too absurd to be taken seriously”. Yet the dominant World… Read More ›
Great article in the Lacuna magazine discussing the hardships of single parenting in contemporary Britain and what the benefits system and employment policies are doing wrong. (Also, a great example of sociological writing with interviews). Down the Rabbit Hole: Single… Read More ›
Today I came across another good article by David Graeber about why there are so many really bad jobs around: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs. “In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have… Read More ›
Ephemera is a pretty good journal. And here is a really cool article about the categories that make up our understanding of labour, employment and work. Categories structure the way we understand the world – they don’t just “reflect” it truthfully…. Read More ›
This thoughtful (though depressing) post on the LSE Impact Blog dissects the politics of the precarious future faced by grad students in the United Kingdom. How does the future look elsewhere? Better? Worse? The Idle Ethnographer and I have a… Read More ›
The Idle Ethnographer is back in the field. I am doing some follow-up, and some new, interviews with maritime people in Bulgaria. Most of the previous ones were done 4-5 years ago, just before the effects of the 2008-9 financial… Read More ›
For our readers interested in the globalisation of labour and workers’ experiences, today’s reading is about call centres. Two documentary films, the 2005 film Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night and the 2006 film Bombay Calling also tackle this recent… Read More ›
In , I did over 50 interviews with Bulgarian maritime workers. I wanted to study the post-socialist transformations of institutions and practices of maritime labour – and how those changes affected the working lives of seafarers and other maritime workers…. Read More ›
Continued: Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 (Continued tomorrow)
Last week the University of Birmingham advertised for an Honorary Research Assistant to work in its School of Psychology. It looks to be quite interesting work – two or more days a week clinically assessing adolescents who are seeking… Read More ›
Most people may have heard about Arkle, Red Rum, even Desert Orchid. How many people will have given a thought about the individuals who made sure these equine athletes made it the racetrack, fit and ready to race? It is… Read More ›