The urban and regional impacts of plant closures: new methods and perspectives

Andrew Beer,Sally Weller,Tom Barnes,Ilke Onur,Julie Ratcliffe,David Bailey,Markku Sotarauta

doi:10.1080/21681376.2019.1622440

Abstract

ABSTRACTWork on large-scale plant closures has provided a rich vein of scholarship and academic debate. This paper articulates a new set of methods and concepts for understanding how large-scale redundancies associated with the closure of manufacturing plants affects society and the economy at the local, regional and national scales. It posits the need for a more comprehensive exercise in data collection and experimentation with previously unused methods, including the application of discrete-choice experiments in order to understand better the choice and decision-making frameworks adopted by affected workers. The paper argues there is a need to integrate community-wide policy responses into the core of the analyses.

Highlights

Plant closures, and the associated large-scale displacement of workers, remain an enduring feature of both developed and developing economies (Bailey & MacNeill, 2008; Bailey, de Ruyter, Michie, & Tyler, 2010; Bailey, Kobayashi, & MacNeill, 2008; Pfeiffer & Chapman, 2010; Pike, 2005)
Other research has examined the impacts of public policy responses, especially the effectiveness of labour market assistance post-redundancy (Armstrong, Bailey, de Ruyter, Mahdon, & Thomas, 2008; Bailey & MacNeill, 2008; Bailey, Bentley, de Ruyter, & Hall, 2014)
The ‘shock of the new’ (Toffler, 1971) may well see large parts of our established economic structure disappear within the space of one or two decades, and if some of the commentators are to be believed (Deloitte, 2014; Frey & Osborne, 2017) the very institution of paid employment may well be brought into question for large sections of the population in developed and developing economies alike

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The urban and regional impacts of plant closures: new methods and perspectives 381. Weller, 2008). This paper articulates a new set of methods and concepts for understanding how large-scale redundancies associated with the closure of manufacturing plants affects society and the economy at the local, regional and national scales. The paper turns to examine ways to develop more robust insights into large-scale changes in labour markets, drawing on key debates in the literature to argue for more comprehensive longitudinal data collections, the application of theoretically informed qualitative data collections, community-wide analyses of responses to change and a detailed focus on the choices – forced and voluntary – made by affected workers and their families. We argue that the increased complexity of contemporary working environments calls for a more integrated analytical approach, one which can assign agency to governments, firms and individuals

A CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

Findings

CONCLUSIONS