ABSTRACT
The labour market plays a pivotal role in linking economic and social change, with far-reaching implications for the prosperity of places and people. As Roberts has indicated in Chapter 7, cyclical economic fluctuations and more enduring structural changes produce shifts in the level and nature of employment, which shape people’s living standards, social status and self-esteem and the overall well-being and cohesion of the community. There, however, are growing suggestions that these relationships also work in the opposite direction, namely that the skills, attitudes and organisational capacities of the population in particular places affect the rate of economic development and employment growth. In a context of falling transport and communication costs, and heightened mobility of capital and labour, both sets of processes become more complex and less predictable.
