The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment is delighted to announce that Sandra Smith will serve as Interim Director for IRLE, effective July 1. She takes over for Jesse Rothstein, who will be on sabbatical through June 2018.

Including letters of recommendation as part of the application process positively impacted the enrollment of underrepresented students at the University of California, Berkeley, according to a new study from the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment’s California Policy Lab.

With the average cost of child care in the U.S. equaling college tuition and millions of early childhood educators facing wages so low they often struggle to support their own families, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment released a new animated video to help people understand the challenges facing families, babies, and the teachers that work with them.

An explosion of gig work is routinely cited in the press, but a plethora of studies using different definitions and methods have arrived at very different estimates of how common these jobs are — anywhere from less than 1 percent to a full 35 percent of the workforce.