Economic Geography

19 Labour market geographies 
Employment and 
non-employment
Anne Green
Introduction
This chapter provides a series of reflections on developments in labour market
geographies, and associated concerns with employment and non-employment,
over the last quarter century. It cannot and does not claim to provide a compre-
hensive overview, but rather it addresses selected key themes. While not restricted
to the United Kingdom, it is there where the main emphasis lies – particularly
with respect to policy.
At the outset a brief outline of the changing nature of labour markets over this
period is provided to set the context for two main substantive sections of the
chapter. The first main section deals with changing approaches and concerns of
economic geographers. Five main issues are addressed under the ‘approaches’
sub-heading: (1) the change in emphasis from quantitative to qualitative methods;
(2) the move away from empiricism towards theory; (3) the increasing weight
placed on social and cultural issues; (4) the trend towards more detailed disag-
gregation; and (5) the role of geography and geographers in multi-disciplinary
and inter-disciplinary studies of labour markets and labour market geographies.
It is not possible to do justice within the constraints of space available to address
the multiplicity of ‘concerns’ of economic geographers, so the main focus here is
placed on the operation of local labour markets, with particular reference to 
four topics: (1) labour market adjustments; (2) the balance between migration
and commuting; (3) the place of perceptions; and (4) the role of labour market
intermediaries.
The second main section deals with changing policy issues. In the context of
the opportunities for geographers offered by increased emphasis on evidence-
based policy, amongst the issues highlighted are ‘healthy’ labour markets, and
the shift in policy concerns from unemployment to non-employment, and from
the ‘quantity’ to the ‘quality’ of employment. In turn, these issues relate to key
policy questions, such as ‘why’ and ‘how’ concentrations of worklessness emerge,
what should be the balance between supply-side and demand-side issues in
labour market policy, and what policy levers are available at different geographi-
cal levels to influence outcomes. The final section of the chapter sets out some

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Anne Green
key features of the future agenda for researchers concerned with labour market
geographies, and also a central question around which policy-relevant research
could be focused.
Context
In the introductory chapter to ‘Geographies of Labour Market Inequality’,
Martin and Morrison (2003) provide a useful overview of the changing world of
work, which sets the context for academics and policy analysts concerned with
the geography of labour markets. In simple schematic format, they identify four
key forces of change: structural change (encompassing deindustrialisation, tertiari-
sation and privatisation); technological change (incorporating computerisation,
informalisation and digitisation); globalisation (subsuming deepening, intensifi-
cation and speed-up of international interactions and inter-dependencies); and
deregulation and re-regulation (characterised by shifting power back to employers
and a shift to active labour market policies). Amongst the main labour market
impacts of these changes they identify the sectoral recomposition of employment,
the skill recomposition of work, the gender recomposition of employment, union
decline and new work relations, increased vulnerability to unemployment, casual-
isation and increased job insecurity, and widening of wage and income disparities.
This brief overview provides some insight into the reach and depth of the
agenda, and the multiplicity of issues and impacts, facing economic geographers
researching the geography of labour markets. It is not possible to touch on all of
these issues here, but they are illustrative of the range of topics studied by geog-
raphers and other labour market analysts, and, more particularly, they set the
context for key policy issues.