ABSTRACT
Any review will show that two different approaches have been used to analyse recent changes in the patterns of manufacturing employment in the UK. One approach has made extensive use of aggregate statistics to describe the patterns of change across regional and sub-regional boundaries (Fothergill and Gudgin 1979, 1982; Keeble 1976, 1980; Martin 1982; Townsend 1980a, 1983a). A second approach, while stressing the importance of large industrial companies in shaping employment patterns, focuses analysis on particular industries (defined by their category of product; Massey and Meegan 1978, 1979, 1982). The former approach may provide useful descriptions of net geographical changes, and the latter may afford valuable conceptual insight into the mechanisms of some of these changes. However, we suggest that the most effective way of identifying the origins of larger redundancies and of drawing out policy implications, is by reference to the activities of the named corporation across a national set of regions or sub-regions. This paper explores the benefits and the problems associated with this approach. It refers to the patterns of redundancies associated in particular with closures and part-closures of productive capacity, which occurred in the UK after October 1976.
