Work and Employment Relations

What is "permacrisis" and why is it relevant to work?

An extended period of instability and insecurity caused by repeated catastrophic events (Collins Dictionary's 2024 word of the year). Relevant to work because COVID, the financial crisis, rising inequality, and geopolitical shifts have all simultaneously destabilised labour markets and weakened the post-war settlement of stable wages and low unemployment.

What is the "old" vs "new" model of work?

Old model: stable permanent contracts, pensions, predictable career ladders and promotions. New model: gig work, zero-hours contracts, instability, no sick pay or benefits, fragmented careers. The lecture cautions against exaggerating this shift — non-standard contracts have risen before.

What are the defining characteristics of gig work?

Workers earn money performing specific tasks ("gigs") on demand. A digital platform mediates between worker and customer and takes a commission. Workers are typically classified as self-employed, meaning no sick pay, minimum wage protections, or right to unionise. Examples: Uber, Deliveroo, Upwork.

Why does the legal classification of gig firms matter?

Whether a firm like Uber is classified as a technology intermediary or a transport employer determines whether workers are entitled to employee rights: minimum wage, sick pay, unfair dismissal protections, and the right to unionise. The relationship between firm and worker is deliberately ambiguous.

What are the major costs of gig work for workers?

Labour intensity (long hours, fast pace), close monitoring (ratings, real-time tracking), insecurity (deactivation without normal protections), risk shifted onto workers (fuel, vehicle wear, illness), lack of benefits (no sick pay, pension, leave), isolation (no fixed workplace or colleagues), and the "tyranny of the algorithm" — opaque, impersonal algorithmic control.

What are the potential benefits of gig work?

For workers: flexibility over hours, easier entry into paid work, low skill barriers, relative autonomy ("no boss"). For customers and firms: cheaper, faster services and high investor returns. The lecture acknowledges these without treating gig work as purely negative.

How big is the gig economy in the UK?

Around 3.5% of all workers, approximately 1.1 million people. Measurement is difficult — no official estimates exist. Future growth depends on technological feasibility, legal challenges, and whether platforms are operating as loss leaders to undercut competition.

What are the key trends in the gender pay gap?

The raw gap has been closing at about 0.4–0.5 percentage points per year, faster in countries with initially larger gaps (UK, US, Japan). But at current rates it would take ~40 years to close fully (Bryson et al., 2020). Hiring discrimination persists despite legislation, evidenced by audit/correspondence field experiments.

What is the "China shock" and what are its effects?

China's rise as a global economic force has had persistent effects on workers in the US and elsewhere: local employment decline, wage suppression, and firm closures (Autor et al., 2021). China owns approximately 5% of US debt, illustrating deep global economic interdependence with political consequences.

nominal VS real earnings?

• Nominal earnings are the face value of wages.

• Real earnings are adjusted for inflation — measuring actual purchasing power. Nominal wages can rise while real wages fall if inflation is high enough. The UK has experienced real wage stagnation despite nominal increases.

Why is wage inequality rising?

• Decline of trade unions

• changes in how skills are priced by markets

• soaring CEO pay

• "superstar" effects (a small group can sell labour to massive markets, winner-takes-all). Barth et al. (2016) argue inequality is increasingly explained by where you work — some firms become high-wage ecosystems, others low-wage traps.

What is rent-sharing and what has happened to it?

Rent-sharing is when workers share in firm profits when performance improves. Evidence (Bell et al., 2019; Bell & Van Reenen, 2016) shows rent-sharing has declined in the UK, US, and EU — firm surpluses increasingly go to shareholders rather than workers. Labour's share of UK national income fell from ~71.6% in 1955 to ~59.1% in 2025.

What are the positive and negative effects of robots and AI on work?

• Negative: job loss, deskilling, wage suppression, increased surveillance and monitoring.

• Positive: job enrichment, working hours reductions, real wage growth if productivity gains are shared. The Solow paradox notes productivity gains may not show up immediately in statistics due to organisational lags.

What is Richard Freeman's key insight about technology and work?

"Who owns the robots will have a big say." Technology is not destiny — the distribution of gains from automation depends on power, ownership, and collective bargaining. The employment relationship is fundamentally social and outcomes are negotiated, not automatic.

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How was COVID-19 a different kind of recession?

It was simultaneously an economic shock and a health shock — affecting both labour supply (death, sickness, lockdown) and labour demand (collapse in hospitality, surge in online retail). UK GDP fell 20.4% in Q2 2020 — the largest quarterly drop ever and deepest slump since 1921.

What are the long-term effects of COVID on the labour market?

• Worker scarring (entering the labour market during a recession harms future earnings)

• national debt constraining public spending,

• structural shift toward online retail and away from high streets, and embedded telecommuting/hybrid work.

• Impacts were unequal across gender, age, income, and employment type (Blundell et al., 2020).