ABSTRACT
In the 1990s unemployment policy became increasingly driven by the notion of motivating individual job seekers to be more active in their job search and to make attitudes 'more realistic' in terms of wage expectations, which were too high. Thus, high levels of job insecurity in the UK cannot be explained merely with reference to short average job tenure rates or levels of unemployment. While overall employment grew by 1.7 million jobs between 1981 and 1996, Britain's 20 major cities have lost 500,000 jobs. Any assessment of British and Chinese labour markets and labour market policies is faced with the problem of comparability. The aspects were used to guide the discussion of the British labour market and contemporary labour market policies in a comparative European context. Spatial disparities within regions and between urban and rural areas remain characteristic for the British labour market.
