Four inter-related puzzles characterise trends and patterns of human capital and productivity in the UK: i) high skill demand lags behind high skill supply; ii) real wages are not keeping up with the higher skill supply; iii) the assumed skill bias of new technologies is uneven and possibly even absent; and iv) multiple organisational factors make the skill-innovation-productivity equation highly contingent and uncertain (for further details, see link to TPI Working Paper Grimshaw and Miozzo).
To address these puzzles and to address the UK policy goal of building and sustaining a high skill workforce amidst global challenges of digitalisation and sustainability, new inter-disciplinary thinking is required beyond a narrow economics frame. There is much to be learned from studies of innovation and employment, especially their close attention to institutions and the interplay of sectoral and organisational dynamics.
The problem of intersectional labour market inequalities, a key feature of the UK labour market, also needs to be central to our research, as does a concern to understand the benefits of decent work and collective worker voice for responsible innovation and sustainable productivity growth.
Professor Mary O’Mahony
Dr Simone Schnall Reader in Experimental Social Psychology, Fellow and Director of Studies in Psychology, University of Cambridge
Dr August De Coulon
Professor Jill Rubery
Professor Phil Brown
Dr Davide Consoli
Martin Fleming
Professor Andrew Henley
Emeritus Professor Ewart Keep
Dr Hsing-fen Lee
Professor Sandra McNally
Professor Marcela Miozzo
Professor Paul Lewis
Professor Anthony Rafferty
Uma Rani
Chris Warhurst
Human capital and productivity: a call for new interdisciplinary research
