Gaby Atfield

What works? Policies for employability in cities

Employability policies targeting urban job seekers have often had a ‘work first’ focus on quick job entries, neglecting sustainability and progression. This article reviews evidence on ‘what works’, drawing generic lessons from research on locally-focused urban policy initiatives in Great Britain operationalised in the context of persistent worklessness in many cities. The findings highlight the importance of employer engagement to open up job opportunities, recognising the diverse needs of individuals, the significance of personalised support for those furthest from the labour market, and co-ordination of local provision. It is argued that providers need to ensure workless groups have the skills and support to access opportunities created by economic growth. Robust local policy analysis remains challenging but important in the context of limited budgets, payment-by-results and a fragmented policy landscape.

Fuelling displacement and labour market segmentation in low-skilled jobs? Insights from a local study of migrant and student employment

Medium-term employment trends highlight increasing labour market disadvantage for people with no/low qualifications. Consequently, established local populations with no/low qualifications have been reported as being hostile to ‘new arrivals’ filling local jobs, on the basis that they are perceived as taking employment opportunities away from them. Drawing on a local study of migrant and student employment on opportunities for people with no/low formal qualifications in the UK city of Coventry, this paper shows how labour market restructuring in the context of neoliberalism has resulted in an increasingly compartmentalised labour market, in which some types of employment have become undesirable and often not feasible for some local workers, but attractive (or at least acceptable) for other groups, including migrant workers and students. The outcome is reduced labour market opportunities for local people with no/low qualifications, because the more flexible migrant workers and students allow employers to restructure their workforces and develop jobs that fit with the ‘frames of reference’ of these groups but match the requirements of some established local people less well.