Economic Change and the Labour Market in Britain’s Seaside Towns

Abstract

Beatty C. and Fothergill S. (2004) Economic change and the labour market in Britain’s seaside towns, Reg. Studies 38, 461–480. For thirty years, Britain’s seaside towns have faced the challenge of the rising popularity of foreign holidays. This paper explores how their economies have adapted, and in particular the extent to which high claimant unemployment in many of the towns is rooted in local job loss. By deploying ‘labour market accounts’ for 1971 to 2001, the paper shows that in fact the continuing imbalance in seaside labour markets owes more to high levels of in-migration than to job loss, and even the sectors of the local economy most closely linked to tourism show growth in employment.