The Location of Employment Growth after 1978: The Surprising Significance of Dispersed Centres

Despite the overwhelming importance of job loss in labour markets in Great Britain since 1979, and the growth of unemployment everywhere, it has come to light that a proportion of areas enjoyed net job gains when recession was at its worst. Contrary to common assertion, these areas lay not entirely in the Home Counties or eastern Scotland, but included examples in most regions (for example, Exeter, York). A common denominator of many of these changes lies in relative shifts towards grade 3A service centres in the production of services. This pattern also prompts the need for thorough stocktaking over the location of elements of job growth, and the methodological implications of new sectoral patterns of growth, which continue to be represented sharply in official estimates at regional level to 1985.