Employer practices

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 June 17, 2022

Employer Practices and Economic Mobility: Future Directions for Research

There are several promising avenues for research on employer practices and how they can influence economic mobility for low-wage workers.

Archana Pyati

Employer practices June 17, 2022

Employer Practices and Economic Mobility: What Does the Evidence Say?

A new report summarizes research on employer practices that can support economic mobility for low-wage workers, and the mechanisms by which these practices exert their influence.

Archana Pyati

Skills and training April 08, 2022

How Randomized Evaluations Build Evidence to Inform Workforce Program Design, Policy, and Investment

Four takeaways from J-PAL North America and WorkRise joint panel on the power of randomized controlled trials in generating evidence to inform and guide decisionmaking and investment in workforce training.

Sam Haas

Employer practices January 24, 2022

New Evidence Shows Internal Labor Markets Favor Higher-Wage over Lower-Wage Workers

A recent paper from researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management finds occupational stratification limits the benefits that internal hiring can bring to the workers who most need upward mobility.

Andrew Boardman

Research

Worker voice, representation, and power July 28, 2022

Worker Power and Economic Mobility: A Landscape Report

This landscape report summarizes empirical evidence on two main pathways for workers to exercise their power in the labor market: the ability to exit their current job for  better outside options and organizations and institutions that build worker voice within firms.  

Ioana Marinescu, Jake Rosenfeld

Job search and matching July 20, 2022

Search and Matching in Modern Labor Markets: A Landscape Report

This landscape report synthesizes research on how job seekers find work and how employers post and fill open positions in the labor market. It also explores frictions experienced by both parties and implications for workers’ economic mobility.

Alexander W. Bartik, Bryan A. Stuart

Employer practices June 17, 2022

Employer Practices and Worker Outcomes: A Landscape Report

Commissioned by WorkRise, this report by researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management summarizes evidence on employer practices that influence economic mobility and promising areas for research to advance the state of policy and practice.

Erin L. Kelly, Hazhir Rahmandad, Nathan Wilmers, Aishwarya Yadama

Job search and matching January 14, 2022

Rise with the STARs

New research from WorkRise grantee Opportunity@Work demonstrates the harm and exclusion workers without four-year degrees who are “skilled through alternative routes” (STARs) experience in the labor market.

Papia Debroy, Justin Heck

Employer practices July 01, 2021

Skills, Degrees, and Labor Market Inequality

In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, researchers demonstrate that workers with college degrees have dramatically better access to higher-wage occupations where the skill requirements exceed the workers’ observed skill compared to workers without degrees.

Peter Q. Blair, Papia Debroy, Justin Heck