ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the contemporary changes of employment in the core area, including the context of trends in the wider metropolitan region, and to consider the prospects for the future. The course of employment change in Western societies in any short period is affected by both cyclical and long-term structural influences. Contemporary changes in occupational structure are also important for any study of metropolitan employment. The introduction of new machinery has tended to reduce the need for skilled and semiskilled manual workers with a possible deskilling of the labour force. Employment in the core can be divided between the city centre and the surrounding inner city. The former has an economy heavily biased towards services whilst the latter has always contained a substantial element of manufacturing. The causes of employment decline in the core are unlikely to be structural since whilst the area has some declining industries it also has many growth ones.
