IWER
Human Resources
A New Definition of Good Jobs, with Support from IWER Faculty Members
The new working definition of a good job encompasses three aspects of a job: economic stability; economic mobility; and equity, respect, and voice.
Credit: Good Jobs Champions Group, Aspen Institute, and Families and Workers Fund
A number of faculty members from the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER) have expressed their support for a new statement defining the attributes of a good job in today’s economy.
A group called the Good Jobs Champions Group, brought together by the Families and Workers Fund and the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, released the new good jobs definition on October 4, 2022 as part of a “Statement on Good Jobs.” The statement’s IWER-affiliated signatories include: Paul Osterman, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Professor of Human Resources and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Erin L. Kelly, the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan and Co-Director of IWER; Anna Stansbury, the Class of 1948 Career Development Assistant Professor and an Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan; Thomas A. Kochan, the Post-Tenure George Maverick Bunker Professor at MIT Sloan; and Barbara Dyer, IWER Research Affiliate.
“Good jobs are essential for good lives,” said Osterman. “Our great challenge is not simply creating jobs but assuring that they are good and, by the same token, upgrading the quality of existing work. We have the tools to achieve these goals but need to come together and build the will to move forward.”
Read the new “Statement on Good Jobs.”
