Skills in the Age of Over-Qualification

Caroline Lloyd is Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University and an Associate Fellow at the centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance. Her research focuses on the relationships between product markets, labour markets, work organisation and skills. She has published widely on issues related to the political economy of skill and the causes and consequences of low wage work, including co-editing Low-Wage Work in the United Kingdom (Russell Sage Foundation). Current research interests include international comparisons of skill and work organisation; job quality; industrial policy and skill utilisation.Jonathan Payne is Reader in Employment Studies in the Department of Human Resource Management at Leicester Business School, De Montfort University, and a member of the research group on Contemporary Research on Organisations, Work and Employment (CROWE). Prior to this, he was a researcher with the Economic and Social Research Council's centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE). His research interests and publications encompass the political economy of skill, vocational education and training policy, the changing meaning of 'skill', workplace innovation, and international comparative studies of work organisation and job quality.

• 1: Skills, Jobs and Services: A Challenge for Europe in the Age of Over-qualification 2: Work and Skills in Contemporary Capitalism 3: National Institutions, Sectors and Work Organisation: A Theoretical Framework 4: Industrial Relations, Skill Formation Systems and Workplace Development: Continuity and Change in the UK, Norway and France 5: Professional Work, Autonomy and Performance: Vocational Teachers 6: Regulating the Middle: Fitness Instructors 7: Raising the Bottom: Café Workers 8: Towards Better Jobs: Possibilities and Prospects in the Age of Over-qualification

This is a book for policy makers, academics and students alike. The immense scope and depth of the research contained in this book provides valuable contributions and opens up important new policy avenues and research agendas capable of pushing theoretical developments forward.