Workplace Employee Relations Survey: Private Sector Panel, 1998-2004

  The <i>Workplace Employment Relations Survey </i> (WERS) series is a periodic national survey of people at work. So far, the surveys have been conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2004. The purpose of each survey in the WERS series has been to provide large-scale, statistically reliable evidence about a broad range of industrial relations and employment practices across almost every sector of the economy in Great Britain. This evidence is collected with several objectives in mind. The survey aims to provide a mapping of employment relations practices in workplaces across Great Britain, monitor changes in those practices over time, inform policy development and permit an informed assessment of the effects of public policy, and bring about a greater understanding of employment relations as well as the labour market. The series was originally known as the <i>Workplace Industrial Relations Survey</i>, or WIRS - the name was changed in 1998 to better reflect the contemporary content of the series. The WIRS/WERS series from 1980 onwards is held at the UKDA under GN 33176.<br>
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The <i>Workplace Employee Relations Survey Private Sector Panel, 1998-2004</i> study analyses WERS workplace panel data to further understanding of the factors associated with the survival and growth of British private sector workplaces in the 1990s. It identified the independent effects of workplace size, age, technology, research and development and human capital investment on survival and growth. It explored these relationships among different types of workplace, notably those in single-establishment and multi-establishment firms. It tested the sensitivity of results to alternative estimation techniques including selection-adjusted estimates of employment growth accounting for the probability of workplace survival.<br>
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The results were sensitive to sample selection modelling. As such, the study was among the first to demonstrate the importance of tackling sample selection to properly understand the factors affecting workplace employment growth. Important differences are indicated in factors associated with growth and survival in single-site and multi-site firms. The study demonstrates that factors associated with employment growth per se can differ from those that influence internal growth, i.e. organic growth from within the workplace as opposed to growth associated with ownership change. The study extended the literature on workplace employment growth to consider human capital investments and demonstrates that, whereas some workforce composition variables do indeed affect workplace growth and survival, direct measures of human capital investment prolong the life of workplaces, but have no significant impact on workplace employment growth.<br>
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Syntax code and logs used in the derivation of variables are included in the dataset, but otherwise documentation for this study is limited. Users are strongly encouraged to consult the documentation for the main WERS 2004 study (held under SN 5294) and the WERS 98 panel study (held under SN 4026).<br>
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Further information about WERS is available from the <a href="http://www.wers2004.info/index.php" title="Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 Information and Advice Service" target="_new" > WERS 2004 Information and Advice Service</a> (WIAS) web site, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) <a href="http://www.berr.gov.uk/employment/research-evaluation/wers-2004/" title="The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey">2004 Workplace Employee Relations Survey</a> and <a href="http://www.berr.gov.uk/employment/research-evaluation/wers-98/index.html" title="The 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey">1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey</a> web pages.<br>
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