ABSTRACT
The musical The Last Ship is set in Wallsend, England. In Wallsend, there is one shipyard and it will close in the near future. With the closing of the shipyard, the workers will be unemployed. What’s worse, as shipbuilders in a town that soon won’t have a shipyard, their skills likely won’t translate easily into another industry. These individuals would be considered structurally unemployed. Structural unemployment occurs when the skills of the workers don’t match the skills that are needed by employers.
