Job Creation and Job Destruction in Great Britain in the 1980s

Abstract

The authors investigate processes of job creation and job destruction in Britain, using data from the Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys of 1980, 1984, and 1990. They find that rates of employment growth, job creation, job destruction, and job reallocation (the sum of job creation and job destruction) were higher at the end of the 1980s than at the beginning. Both job creation and job destruction were extremely concentrated: about 50% of each was accounted for by just 4% of continuing establishments. Employment growth was apparently more variable in manufacturing plants than in private service sector workplaces. Some variables negatively related to employment growth were unionization, establishment size, establishment age, and location in the private manufacturing sector (versus private service sector).