Industrial Change in Southern England: A Case Study of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Industry in the Southampton City-Region

Abstract

The electrical engineering and electronics industry is the largest manufacturing industry in the Southampton ‘city-region’, providing over 25% of all manufacturing jobs. This analysis, which is based on detailed case studies of nineteen companies which employed over 11 000 workers in 1987, reveals that recent changes in the industry in the city-region can best be understood by reference to the changing role of local establishments within the wider corporate geography of their parent groups. Despite the high degree of external ownership, the city-region contains various subsidiaries with important control functions and with responsibility for product innovation and development. In response to a range of market pressures there has been a progressive upgrading of the technological sophistication of the products made within the city-region. In some cases this technological enhancement has been accompanied by the relocation of mature products to peripheral areas of the United Kingdom or to the Far East. These changes have had an important impact upon the skill composition of the work force. Increases in scientific, technical, and management functions have been accompanied by absolute or relative declines in production, ancillary, and clerical jobs. These occupational and production changes have, particularly in the larger firms, been associated with new working patterns.