Which tasks workers perform in their jobs is critical for how technological change plays out in the labour market. This article critically reviews existing measures of occupational task content and makes the case for rethinking how this concept is operationalised. It identifies serious shortcomings relating to the theoretical content and the empirical implementation of existing measures. Based on survey data from European Union countries between 2000 and 2015, it then introduces novel measures of routine task intensity and task complexity at the International Standard Classification of Occupations 1988 two-digit level that address these shortcomings. The indices will contribute to a more theoretically informed understanding of technological change and benefit both labour economists and sociologists in investigating the nature of recent technological change.

The purpose of this article is to investigate emerging areas of precarious employment in Sweden. Based on the literature on dimensions of precariousness and neoliberalism, this article will begin with an analysis of the transitioning Swedish welfare state and the contextual environment of precarious employment in Sweden. This will serve as a point of departure for the development of an occupational classification scheme including measures of income and employment security. In an empirical analysis, the occupational classification will be applied to a population-based register material including two birth cohorts of employed Swedish residents aged 28–33, with a registered income. The development of income and employment security will be described and discussed. By applying this newly developed measure of precarious employment, this article will provide a platform for future theoretical and empirical research on precarious employment in a transitioning welfare state.

Crowdwork conducted via digital platforms is a young form of work, but a growing part of the gig economy. Typical for crowdwork is low pay, volatile income streams and no social security benefits. Also, crowdworkers have few possibilities for social comparison or negotiation because they work outside of company organisations. This article examines the question of whether these conditions mean that crowdworkers’ expectations about justice in crowdwork arrangements differ in comparison to their expectations regarding justice in conventional employment relationships. This question is addressed empirically on the basis of 36 qualitative interviews and a survey of 230 crowdworkers. The justice expectations of crowdworkers involved in different types of crowdworking platforms in German-speaking countries were examined. In our sample, crowd work typically serves to supplement – not replace – conventional employment. This explorative research shows that crowdworkers use similar standards of justice regarding work performance in their evaluations of work mediated via crowdwork platforms and conventional employment. It shows that crowdworkers perceive injustices in four specific areas: planning insecurity, lack of transparency in performance evaluation, lack of clarity in task briefings and low remuneration. These areas correspond to the theoretical dimensions of distributive and procedural justice on Colquitt’s (2001) organisational justice scale. These findings have implications for future efforts to regulate crowdwork.

Higher education enrolment and graduation rates have increased rapidly inter-generationally across much of the world, offering employers the promise of more knowledgeable recruits and promising individuals new means of social advancement. In the case of Bolivia, the labour force is becoming more heterogeneous over time, which could imply positive effects induced by a closer match between labour supply and recruiters’ needs. However, we show that this is not the case. We revisit the transition mechanisms from college to the workplace, positing recruiters’ interpretations of educational credentials as a crucial determining factor for employability in the formal sector. In a two-branch correspondence study, 2848 fictitious CVs were sent to 1424 formal firms in the three main urban Bolivian areas. We find a large university reputation premium. Applicants from well-valued universities are around 40% more likely to receive a positive response – a 2.25 percentage point advantage from a 7.87% baseline likelihood. Thus, the increasingly heterogeneous labour force is generating additional informational frictions in the labour market, rather than promoting a more efficient matching process.

This discussion paper by a group of scholars across the fields of health, economics and labour relations argues that COVID-19 is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis from which there can be no return to the ‘old normal’. The pandemic’s disastrous worldwide health impacts have been exacerbated by, and have compounded, the unsustainability of economic globalisation based on the neoliberal dismantling of state capabilities in favour of markets. Flow-on economic impacts have simultaneously created major supply and demand disruptions, and highlighted the growing within-country inequalities and precarity generated by neoliberal regimes of labour market regulation. Taking an Australian and international perspective, we examine these economic and labour market impacts, paying particular attention to differential impacts on First Nations people, developing countries, women, immigrants and young people. Evaluating policy responses in a political climate of national and international leadership very different from those in which major twentieth century crises were addressed, we argue the need for a national and international conversation to develop a new pathway out of crisis.

This historical paper analyses the distributional consequences of computerisation on the wage share of income in United Kingdom (UK) workplaces in the first decade of this century. The reasons why computerisation might increase a firm’s income but reduce the share assigned to wages are still not well understood. The uniquely rich Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004–2011 includes firm-level measures of the main production inputs and outputs, and thus allows an analysis of the main mechanisms through which increased computer usage influenced the wage share of income in UK workplaces over this period. This analysis shows that the proportion of employees using computers impacted the wage share in ways that were at odds with two mainstream views: that computers complement capital, and that labour can be easily replaced by capital. The results show that the proportion of employees using computers reduced the wage share by disproportionally increasing the productivity of the least skilled employees, who were not proportionally compensated for their increase in productivity. The stability of the wage share, over the period of interest, is explained by the rise in a workplace’s share of professional employees and by a rise in work effort. This positive contribution to the wage share was counteracted by an increased share of employees using computers and by a reduction in the share of employees whose pay was negotiated by unions, thereby contributing to a decline in the wage share of firm income.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that public institutions and some households in the United Kingdom (UK) were in a vulnerable and weak financial position to mitigate its immediate outcomes. Public institutions did not have the necessary resources to support their communities and low-income groups were disproportionally affected by the economic contraction of 2020–2021. This paper explores how the disastrous consequences of the pandemic were exacerbated by the implementation of an austerity programme, that as an extension of a neoliberal ideology, supported the development of the market at the expense of reducing the welfare state. Through an assessment of four trends that were reinforced during austerity—the four ‘Ds’—this article shows that austerity influenced many of the struggles observed during the pandemic. These trends are disinvestment, decentralisation, decollectivisation and disintegration. Despite the lessons learnt in 2020–2021 and the evident need to move away from a neoliberal agenda that dismantled the capacities of the state, this article concludes that neoliberalism continues to threaten the welfare state and the formation of social collectivities. Some expenditure decisions taken by the British government in 2020–2021 could further deepen social class divisions and regional inequalities. More is needed from the government to tackle these social problems and to build a fairer and more equal society.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the nature of work, with physical distancing regulations aimed at preventing infections necessitating work-from-home (WFH) arrangements. Studies indicate that many individuals prefer working from home due to fear of contracting the virus at work. However, not all work can be performed from home. Moreover, jobs that are amenable to be performed from home generally pay more, while the ability to WFH will likely increase income inequality. Therefore, we ascertained socio-economic inequalities in ability to WFH among South African employees during the pandemic. We used data from the National Income Dynamics Study-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of South Africans conducted during the pandemic. We found that the ability to WFH was pro-rich (i.e. concentrated on workers in higher socio-economic classes) in all study periods. The results were robust to the use of different ranking variables and varying the age cut-off. There was no gender difference in these inequalities. Casual employment, urban residence, being married/cohabiting, age and household size dampened the degree to which ability to WFH favoured those in higher socio-economic classes. Conversely, being non-African, living in a house/flat and having more education increased the pro-richness of the ability to WFH. This study highlights the significant inequalities associated with ability to WFH, a likely important positive determinant of welfare in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Interventions targeted at inequality-enhancing factors such as race, housing and education may be important in lowering these inequalities.