An Assessment of Subsidized Relocation of Worker Policy in Britain

Abstract

In September 1976 the Australian Government announced the introduction of a new manpower policy measure, the Relocation Assistance Scheme, which is designed to assist, through the provision of financial payments, the movement of unemployed workers to jobs obtained in a new locality. This scheme is similar in aim and content to the Employment Transfer Scheme which was introduced in Britain in 1972. It therefore seemed a useful exercise, from the Australian policy making point of view, to set out the major results obtained from a three year study of the operation of the Employment Trans fer Scheme in Britain. The results of our sample study presented in this paper indicate that, although few significant external costs accompanied the Scheme's operation, the Employment Transfer Scheme was failing to generate sub stantial social benefits from assisting the movement of unemployed labour in Britain. This was because a disproportionate number of persons assisted under the Scheme would have made a similar move even in the absence of financial assistance, and secondly because a high percentage of the assisted migrants failed to remain employed in the new area for any significant length of time. These deficiencies appeared to result from the Scheme's unselective mode of operation which concerned itself solely with the volume of movement and paid little or no attention to the all-important issues of trying to positively influence the composition and direction of movement under the Scheme.