New Labour at work

Long-term unemployment and the geography of opportunity

Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago

Tough love, American style

Britain would benefit from Clinton’s tough love: Forcing people to finding a job, which has worked in America, is a policy New Labour should adopt (Observer, 3 September 2006)

‘Too many British live on benefit for no better reason than they don’t want to work and there is too little insistence that they show determination and resource in finding some’ (Hutton, 2006).

Hutton on U.S. welfare reform I

Benefit rolls have declined Poverty rate among African-American

children fell to its lowest level in 2000 ‘Even cases of child maltreatment

have fallen’ US welfare reform has ‘worked even

better that its architects imagined…’

Hutton on U.S. welfare reform II

Some teenagers suffer from a lack of parenting

There ‘is a hard core of 10% of single mothers and other claimants in desperate straits who have neither benefit nor work’

‘Poverty is still widespread’

New Labour at work

Tony Blair: rethinking ‘the whole of our philosophy in relation to the labour market’

Embrace of new growth theories that call for an emphasis on macro-economic stability and supply-side intervention

The geography of opportunity

Will Hutton: ‘Too many British live on benefit for no better reason than they don’t want to work and there is too little insistence that they show determination and resource in finding some’ (Observer, 3 September 2006).

The geography of opportunity

David Blunkett: ‘Jobs are there for the taking in most parts of the country’ … ‘there is no hiding place’ for those who don’t accept their responsibility to find work (2001).

John Hutton: ‘can’t work – won’t work culture’ (2007)

The geography of opportunity

HM Treasury: ‘the worst concentrations of joblessness are in very small defined areas and are not caused by a lack of jobs…’ (2003).

The state you’re in

Unemployment rate Share LTU

1975 4.6% 14.8%

1985 11.5% 48.7%

European Commission, 1991

Final Report to the Second European Poverty Program

Relationship between local inactivity rate and local unemployment rate, 2005

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0

Unemployment Rate

Eco

no

mic

In

acti

vity

Rat

e

Total and long-term claimant unemployment, 1983–2007

0500,000

1,000,0001,500,0002,000,0002,500,0003,000,0003,500,0004,000,000

October 1983

January 1987

April 1990

July 1993

October 1996

January 2000

April 2003

July 2006

Year

Un

emp

loym

ent

Co

un

t

Total Unemployed

Long-TermUnemployed

Share of unemployed who found jobs, Britain, 1998-2008

05

101520253035404550

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Year

Per

cen

t le

avin

g c

laim

ant

roll

s fo

r em

plo

ymen

t

Unemployed

Long-termunemployed

Number of claimants leaving benefit rolls for employment, North East, 1998-2008

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Year

Nu

mb

er

of

cla

ima

nts

lea

vin

g r

olls

fo

r e

mp

loy

me

nt

6 months or less

1 year or more

2 years or more

New Deal for Young People

440,000 participants 41% moved into employment 34% moved into ‘sustained’ jobs lasting

13+ weeks ‘about half of those who found work

would have done so anyway’ given the cyclical expansion of the economy

Jane Millar 2000

New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed

New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed: 238,000 participants by February 2000 – 38,000 found jobs (only 32,000 found jobs lasting 13 weeks or more).

Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2000

Discussion

Robin Beveridge, Economic Inclusion Strategy Manager, One NorthEast

Kim Smith, Regional Employability Framework Manager, One NorthEast

Dave Wright, External Partnerships Manager, Job Centre Plus

 

Discussion