Radical
Statistics
Where are the jobless? Changing unemployment and non-employment in cities and regions
Anne E. Green and David Owen, 1998,
The Policy Press: Bristol, £11.95
Review by David Webster
Manufacturing employment fell enormously between 1981 and 1991, especially in London and other large urban centres. Male full-time employment and unskilled jobs were particularly hard-hit. At the same time managerial/professional jobs, and female part-time employment grew. These changes have led to severe skills and spatial mismatches whose consequence has been high unemployment especially in London, other large cities, and mining areas. For men, Labour Force Survey (LFS) unemployment was even higher in 1993 than at its previous peak in 1984. But unemployment is no longer fully revealed by claimant or LFS figures. "Non-employment" has increased for men, although generally falling for women, and in terms of non-employment the North-South divide has remained stubbornly evident.
This is the picture painted by the Green/Owen team’s new report. Unfortunately it does not emerge as clearly as it might. Despite its title, the report does not actually reveal where the jobless are except in terms of broad area typologies and extreme cases. There are confusing parallel analyses in terms of both local authority areas and "travel to work" areas (TTWAs). The latter should have been omitted altogether in favour of a fuller local authority analysis. TTWAs give much detail about a lot of small rural areas, but none at all about the great urban concentrations of unemployment, while generating spurious anomalies. The chosen "cluster" classification of local authorities is not suited to the purpose in hand and as a result the important contribution to unemployment in particular areas of job losses in mining and fishing is missed.
For the non-beginner, this report has much of interest to offer. But anyone wanting a straightforward authoritative guide to unemployment and non-employment and their geographical distribution would be best to start with Beatty et al.’s The Real Level of Unemployment (Sheffield Hallam University, 1997), which unlike Green and Owen gives estimates for every local authority which are invaluable for research purposes. Sadly, a good comprehensive account of the relationship between job loss and unemployment in modern Britain has not yet been written.
David
Webster
C/o
Radical Statistics
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Ruskin House
Heaton
Bradford
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