IPPO Events

The singular shock of the pandemic saw young people entering the labour market forced increasingly into insecure forms of employment.

This event brings together young people, researchers, and city leaders to foreground young people’s experience of insecure work during Covid. It will consider the implications of their experience for public policy, and seek to propose useable takeaways for city policymakers, employers and trade unions to improve young people’s urban futures.

Questions the event will consider include:

• What is it like as a young person navigating insecure work?

• Which lessons can we learn from their experiences during the pandemic?

• How can research and lived experience help policymakers address the issues raised?

• Which initiatives are being undertaken by cities and how can successful interventions be replicated?

The event will see the launch of a British Academy-funded report by Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Fiona Christie exploring how young people in Greater Manchester resist and make meaning of insecure working conditions. Dr Cristiana Orlando of the Institute of Employment Studies will also share findings from her recent Health Foundation-funded research Not just any jobs, Good Jobs!

The session will foreground young people’s experience of insecure work, and see officials from different cities present their insights on the challenges and successes of policymaking in this area.

The event will be facilitated by Carlene Thomas-Bailey, a former Guardian staff writer, current media mentor at the London College of Communications, and member of the Black Business Incubator programme at Somerset House.

This will be a hybrid event, taking place online and in-person at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School in the United Kingdom. For those attending in person, there will be a half-hour for networking after the event, with refreshments provided.

This is a collaborative event between the IPPO Cities – part of the International Public Policy Observatory – and the Centre for Decent Work and Productivity at Manchester Metropolitan University.