Economic Geography

Changing policy issues
Issues of employment, non-employment and the operation of labour markets at
all geographical scales are of relevance to economic and social policy. In the
United Kingdom labour market geographies are explicitly on the policy agenda,
as exemplified by Public Service Agreement targets to reduce disparities in
regional growth rates and to close the employment rate gap between the worst
local areas and the national average. This suggests that there are opportunities for
geographers to enhance their relevance by entering the policy debate and making
their results accessible and informative to policymakers in the manner outlined by
Markusen (2003).
The following sub-sections outline some of these opportunities in more 
detail and highlight important changes in emphasis on selected policy issues,
which in turn offer new challenges to researchers with interests in labour market
geographies.

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Labour market geographies
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Contributing to the evidence base for policy
Since the election of ‘New Labour’ in the United Kingdom in 1997 there 
has been increased emphasis on evidence-based policy. For researchers in acade-
mia and consultancies the raft of evaluation studies associated with New Deal
programmes to combat disadvantage in the labour market and in other domains
have offered opportunities to gain new insights into the ways local labour market
operate in different places through investigation of what interventions work
where, how and why; the role of labour market intermediaries; and the relative
balance between supply-side and demand-side labour market barriers.
‘Healthy’ labour markets
‘Healthy’ has not conventionally been used as a descriptor in conjunction with
‘labour market’. Yet with the publication of Frameworks for Regional Employment
and Skills Action (FRESA) plans (resting on a robust and coherent evidence base)
in the English regions in 2002 to serve as a focus for what needs to happen in a
region to maintain and grow a ‘healthy labour market’, followed by the announce-
ment in 2003 of the establishment of Regional Skills Partnerships to drive forward
the regional skills agenda, ‘healthy’ labour markets comprise an important policy
issue. There is no single accepted definition of what constitutes a ‘healthy’ labour
market. Yet ‘healthy’ is a valuable term, and one that is challenging for researchers,
in that it seeks to encompass something broader than economic concepts of ‘effi-
ciency’, ‘flexibility’, ‘rigidity’ or ‘tightness’. In essence, a ‘healthy’ labour market
may be conceptualised as one that produces desirable results – both socially and
economically, and which is sustainable over time. In a ‘healthy’ labour market there
are skills and job opportunities at all levels, but the emphasis is on moving up the
skills and value chain and ensuring that there is a progression route for those who
choose to take it. Hence, a ‘healthy’ labour market has three key dimensions: 
(1) a strong demand side – in terms of quantity and quality of jobs; (2) a strong
supply side – relating to the numbers and characteristics of people able to take
those jobs; and (3) efficient and equitable functioning to bring together demand
and supply. It also requires appropriate supporting conditions – including educa-
tion, training, workforce development, benefits and welfare, housing and transport
infrastructure. Creating a ‘healthy’ labour market depends on having a clear vision
of the desired result, an understanding of the processes that might bring about that
result, and how these processes might be influenced by public intervention. Once
these are in place, indicators and targets for measuring the effectiveness of inter-
ventions and assessing progress may be set. Hence, there is ample scope for geog-
raphers and other labour market researchers to contribute to policy debates on
growing and maintaining ‘healthy’ labour markets.