Library Services: Economics: Labour Economics

Labour Economics

Bureau of Labor Statistics
Government body offering official stats on: employment, unemployment, pay, benefits, productivity, working conditions, time use, prices, spending, inflation. Includes detailed survey data, e.g. Current Population Survey (similar to the Labour Force Survey in the UK)
ICTWSS (Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts)
Detailed database compiled by Jelle Visser at Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS). Covers 55 countries from 1960-2018
and four key elements of modern political economies: trade unionism, wage setting, state intervention and social pacts. The database contains annual data for all OECD and EU member states and some emerging economies Brazil; China; India; Indonesia; Russia; and South Africa.
International Labour Office Statistics

Portal to various ILO databases:

ILOSTAT - the ILOs major database (statistics for over 200 countries, with data back to 1945 for some countries).
Labour Force Surveys
INWORK (wages & working conditions)
Labordoc is the digital repository of ILO publications

The ILO's flagship publication is Key indicators of the labour market

Leximetrics
Project of the Centre for Business Research (Cambridge), freely accessible dataset: Labour Regulation Index (117 countries, 1970-2013), plus other indices of shareholder & creditor protection.
OECD Indicators of Employment Protection
World Economic Forum Global Human Capital Report

Child Labour

Data on child labour is collected through surveys, periodically (intervals of several years or more). Main sources of data are:

ILO-IPEC SIMPOC
Statistical Information & Monitoring Programme on Child Labour
UNICEF MICS
(Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey) programme and see its Child Labour theme page for aggregated statistics.
World Bank LSMS
(Living Standards Measurement Survey) data. Aggregated data available through World Development Indicators.

Gig Economy

Jamie Woodcock's latest book on this topic is freely available to download here

Trades Unions

ICTWSS (Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts)
Detailed database compiled by Jelle Visser at Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS). Covers 55 countries from 1960-2018
and four key elements of modern political economies: trade unionism, wage setting, state intervention and social pacts. The database contains annual data for all OECD and EU member states and some emerging economies Brazil; China; India; Indonesia; Russia; and South Africa.

For the UK the Labour Force Survey is the official source of data used to measure trade union membership, but data is also available from the following surveys: Workplace Employment relations Survey; Skills and Employment Survey; Understanding Society (all available through UKDS)

TUC Library
Huge resource for British labour history, housed at London Metropolitan University. Includes the digitised TUC annual reports 1868-1968 at
http://www.unionhistory.info/index.php

Women

Women's Budget Group
Independent network of academics, policymakers & campaigners, with a UK focus

See also links on the Business and Sociology subject guides