The impact of recession on city regions: The British experience, 2008-2013

Abstract

The article is concerned with the relationship of employment fluctuations to sub-regional outcomes. The impact of Britain's severe recession since 2008 on regions is reasonably well known, because official statistics provide monthly labour market data for them. Far less familiar are the trends for smaller areas which have to be built up from rolling 12-month averages. This article utilises averages for 2008, 2010 and 2012 to assess the impact of recession on different types of area. Following mention of the disproportionate growth of unemployment in the most deprived types of local areas, it proceeds to analysis by academically defined city regions, with particular reference to a three-way division (the aggregate of nine provincial city regions, the London city region and the rest of Great Britain) and using 'full-time equivalent' jobs calculated by a previously established method. This metric indicates that national employment had not recovered its pre-recession level by 2012. Structural bias of employment towards manufacturing, construction and public services at the beginning of the study period provided the provincial city regions as a whole with a worse outcome from the recession than for the London city region, the latter contributing heavily to the national secular growth of high-skilled and self-employment. © The Author(s) 2014.