Overview

Employer practices such as hiring, scheduling, promotion, supervision, and on-the-job training determine workers’ day-to-day reality and long-term prospects in the labor market. The growing prevalence of independent contractors and contingent workers underscores the continued fissuring of employer-employee relationships.

Working Knowledge

Employer practices July 22, 2021
Article

New Evidence Sheds Light on Automation’s Role in Task Displacement and Wage Inequality

A new working paper from The National Bureau of Economic Research explores how automation is contributing to wage inequality and displacing certain worker groups from employment opportunities.

Maalik Nickerson , Archana Pyati

July 22, 2021
Employer practices July 01, 2021
Article

Charting a Postpandemic Path toward Good Jobs

Five key insights from Urban and WorkRise's forum on how to improve job quality so that work can once again become a pathway for economic security and mobility.

Archana Pyati

July 01, 2021
Employer practices July 01, 2021
Article

People First, Employees Second: Workers Reflect on What Good Jobs Mean to Them

Workers share their perspectives and experiences at a joint Urban Institute and WorkRise event that explored job quality and the roles different stakeholders play in creating higher-quality jobs for all workers.

Alexandra Tammaro

July 01, 2021
Employer practices June 17, 2021
Article

Employer-Sponsored Small Dollar Loans Improve Workers’ Access to Safe and Affordable Credit

Financial shocks harm both workers and their employers. They undermine a workers' employment and prospects for economic mobility and raise costs for employers.

Archana Pyati

June 17, 2021

Research

Employer practices Last updated on December 04, 2024

Centering Workers and Advancing Business Needs: Nine Case Studies of Partnerships in the Manufacturing Sector

Last updated on December 04, 2024
Employer practices Last updated on December 04, 2024

Advancing Economic Mobility in Manufacturing

In today’s labor market, manufacturers, like many employers, recognize that recruiting and retaining workers often means rethinking diversity considerations and identifying new talent pools.
Last updated on December 04, 2024
Employer practices Report Last updated on October 25, 2024

The Minneapolis Small Business High-Road Labor Standards Intervention Pilot Project

The Minneapolis Small Business High-Road Labor Standards Intervention Pilot Project seeks to provide services that support immigrant, black, indigenous, and people of color owned small businesses so that they can create healthy, just, and equitable jobs through meeting and or exceeding minimum city labor standards.

Grantee Research

Last updated on October 25, 2024
Employer practices Brief Last updated on September 19, 2024

Extreme Heat at Work

This research brief offers the first nationally representative estimates of how outdoor and indoor workers are affected by extreme heat, highlighting that low-wage workers, defined as adults earning less than $15 an hour, face greater risks than higher-wage earners.

Lisa Clemans-Cope, Dulce Gonzalez, Sara McTarnaghan, Michael Karpman

WorkRise Research

Last updated on September 19, 2024
Employer practices Report Last updated on May 21, 2024

IKEA Self-Scheduling Intervention: Baseline Report

Widespread unpredictability in work scheduling leads to decreased job satisfaction, higher turnover rates, economic instability, and compromised worker health. To address these challenges, IKEA partnered with The Shift Project to develop a Self-Scheduling Intervention for its hourly workers to give them greater control over their shifts. They selected intervention and comparison stores to measure its impact on worker and business outcomes, and over four years, held weekly meetings to strategize and analyze data. This report contextualizes self-scheduling research, delves into pre-intervention conditions, introduces new features, outlines the research design, and explores future directions.

Grantee Research

Last updated on May 21, 2024


Share your ideas for research, topics, or events to be featured on Working Knowledge by emailing workingknowledge@urban.org