1. Potential impacts on employment
Brexit:
Potential impacts on employment
Margaret Prior
8 November 2017

2. Three areas
Employment rights
Labour force and skills
Good work?

3. Three areas
Employment rights
Labour force and skills
Good work?

4. Employment rights National law EU measures Hybrid measures
e.g. National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage
EU measures
e.g. Working Time Regulations
Hybrid measures
e.g. EU Equal Value amendment to national Equal Pay Act

5. EU Withdrawal Bill
‘Great Repeal Bill’
Transfers all EU measures into UK law
Passed second reading September 2017
Next step(s)?
‘Henry VIII clauses’: allow government to amend or remove EU measures through statutory instruments

6. Government policy(?)
‘we will make sure people have the rights and protections they need … finding the right balance of rights and responsibilities, flexibilities and protections’
Prime Minister Teresa May speaking at launch of Taylor Review, 11 July 2017

7. What next? (Work Foundation 2017)
‘Polarised racing’?
Dual frameworks of standards
Poor standards for low skilled sectors
High standards for higher skilled
Decrease in standards for atypical and precarious workers
Race to the bottom?
low quality, low skill, low costs, few rights
Race to the top?
high quality, high skills, high productivity, high standards

8. Three areas
Employment rights
Labour force and skills
Good work?

9. UK workforce (rounded)
EU citizens
UK citizens
Managerial & professional
23%
28%
Administrative & technical
18%
25%
Skilled trades
12%
Service occupations (incl. retail)
14%
Process, plant & machine operatives
11% 7%
‘Elementary occupations’
22%
10%

10. EU citizens working in the UK
7% of UK workforce, but …
… 15% of two lowest occupational groups
Hotels
Restaurants
Manufacturing
Food manufacture
Domestic workers
Agriculture

11. The future?
UK citizens working in EU likely to be in managerial and professional roles
UK unemployment relatively low
Entrenched labour shortages in low skilled roles
‘relying on EU nationals currently in the UK – who are expected to have their rights protected – will not be sufficient to fill the new vacancies’
(Morris 2017: 4)

12. ‘the UK is currently sleepwalking into a low-value, low skills economy, which is hindered by relatively low levels of employer investment, poor management skills and a relatively long tail of workers without basic skills compared with our OECD competitors’
(CIPD 2017: 7)

13. Three areas
Employment rights
Labour force and skills
Good work?

14. Taylor Review, July 2017 Goal of ‘good work’ for all: Wages
Employment quality
Education and training
Working conditions
Work life balance
Consultative participation
Collective representation

15. Definition of good work?
‘It is good jobs that matter – where people feel a sense of stability, have a say in the workplace, know that their effort is recognised and rewarded, have the skills to do the job but also to develop their own potential, and trust that they will be treated fairly. And most critically, that they are paid a decent wage for the work that they do.’
Submission to Taylor Review