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Professor Guy Standing - precarity and the changing nature of work

Internationally recognized expert on precarity and the changing nature of work, Professor Guy Standing addresses NUPGE's 2019 Convention.  

Guy Standing photo

Professor Guy Standing addresses convention delegates 

Guy Standing is a Professorial Research Associate and former Professor of Development Studies at SOAS University of London, UK. From August 2006 until January 2013, he was Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath in the UK. Between April 2006 and February 2009, he was also Professor of Labour Economics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. From June 1999 until March 2006, he was Director of the Socio-Economic Security Programme of the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

He has a doctorate in economics from the University of Cambridge and a master’s degree in labour economics and industrial relations from the University of Illinois. He has written and edited books on labour economics, labour market policy, unemployment, labour market flexibility, structural adjustment policies, and social protection policy. His most recent books are Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen; The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay; A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens; and The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class.

Professor Standing was coordinating editor and main writer of the ILO’s Economic Security for a Better World, a global report issued in 2004. He is on the editorial advisory boards of several academic journals, including Development and Change and the European Journal of Industrial Relations. He has conducted household and enterprise surveys on labour and economic security issues in over 25 countries, and has advised many governments on the design and implementation of labour force surveys.

In 2003–4, Professor Standing was a member of the International Committee on Emerging Human Rights, set up as part of the Barcelona Social Forum. He was a member of Bruno Kreisky’s Commission on European Employment (1987–89), and has worked as a consultant with many international bodies, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (now the International Trade Union Confederation), the European Commission, the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

In 2009, Professor Standing was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK. In 2014, he received an honorary doctorate from the European College of Economics and Management, Bulgaria, and was invited to join the International Advisory Group of Northeastern University's Center for International Affairs and World Cultures.