Stephen Fothergill

The diversion from ‘unemployment’ to ‘sickness’ across British regions and districts

Beatty C. and Fothergill S. (2005) The diversion from ‘unemployment’ to ‘sickness’ across British regions and districts, Regional Studies 39 , 837–854. Around 2.7 million non‐employed adults of working age in the UK claim sickness‐related benefits, and the numbers have risen steeply over time. The very large variation in the numbers across districts and regions points strongly to extensive hidden unemployment, especially in older industrial areas affected by job losses. This paper builds on two previous papers by the same authors – one dealing with the theoretical framework and the other with a local case study – to present wholly new estimates of the scale of the diversion across all parts of the country. It also questions contemporary perceptions of the UK labour market and the validity of current approaches to re‐engaging sickness claimants with employment.

Twenty Years on: Has the Economy of the UK Coalfields Recovered?

Almost the whole of the British coal industry has closed since the early 1980s. The authors assess the extent to which the areas once dependent on coalmining have adapted to this job loss. A ‘labour-market accounting’ approach is employed to document the principal changes in employment, unemployment, commuting, and activity rates among men in the English and Welsh coalfields over the period to 2004, building on previous similar research covering the period 1981–91. The authors point to a strong recovery of employment among men in these areas, though this is not yet on a scale to offset all the coal job losses and there is important variation between areas. There is also evidence of extensive and continuing ‘hidden unemployment’.

Economic change and the labour market in Britain's seaside towns.

Beatty C. and Fothergill S. (2004) Economic change and the labour market in Britain’s seaside towns, Reg. Studies 38, 461–480. For thirty years, Britain’s seaside towns have faced the challenge of the rising popularity of foreign holidays. This paper explores how their economies have adapted, and in particular the extent to which high claimant unemployment in many of the towns is rooted in local job loss. By deploying ‘labour market accounts’ for 1971 to 2001, the paper shows that in fact the continuing imbalance in seaside labour markets owes more to high levels of in-migration than to job loss, and even the sectors of the local economy most closely linked to tourism show growth in employment.