Job creation initiatives in the UK: the large company role

• Date: 01 December 1987
• Published date: 01 December 1987
• Author: Colin Mason
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2338.1987.tb00911.x

Industrial Relations

Journal

ISSN

0019-8692

S3.00

Job

creation initiatives

in

the

UK:

the large

company

role

Colin

Mason

In

recent years many large companies

-

mainly those making large

scale redundancies

-

have made efforts to stimulate job creation in

the localities in which they are based. Although this has succeeded

in helping

fo

create jobs, it has been criticised, prompting major

sponsors

of such initiatives to consider how job creation strategies

can be made more effective.

Since the mid-1970s much

of

UK

industry

has been faced with the need to rationalise

and cut back

its

productive capacity in the

face

of

an increasingly turbulent economic

environment. The precise causes have varied

by firm and by sector but include changes

in the international division of labour, tech-

nological change, the emergence of product

and factor substitutes, and declining

demand. However, regardless of the cause

the need has invariably been for cost cuts

and the elimination of excess capacity which,

in turn, has required the shedding of many

thousands

of

workers that were deemed to

be surplus to industry's requirements. The

outcome has been a remorseless rise in

the numbers unemployed; moreover, the

uneven geographical distribution

of

job

losses has resulted in many communities

having an unemployment rate well in excess

of the national figure, with all the ensuing

social problems that this situation creates.

Many companies do little for those

employees that they have made redundant

other than to make the statutory redundancy

payments in appropriate circumstances.

0

Colin

Mason

is

Co-Director

of

the Urban

Policy

Research Unit at the University

of

Southampton.

Others respond to the problem of surplus

manpower by means of short-term expedi-

ents such as early retirement incentives,

'golden handshakes' and intra-company

transfers. Some companies

go

to greater

lengths by using

job

placement consultants

to search

for

employment opportunities by

contacting other local companies and pro-

vide retraining programmes, career counsell-

ing and business advice for those thinking

about self-employment. But even these

somewhat more enlightened corporate

responses are now totally inadequate to cope

with the scale

of

the unemployment problem

and the general lack of alternative local

employment opportunities for workers who

have been made redundant, particularly if

they are unskilled,

or

possess industry-spec-

ific skills. Some companies have therefore

made special efforts to assist in job creation

initiatives when faced with the necessity

of

declaring substantial numbers of redundan-

cies in an attempt to mitigate some

of

the

adverse consequences of such events on both

the employees and the local communities

that are affected. Their efforts are

comp-

lemented by the involvement of other com-

panies such as banks, large retailers and

accountancy firms in supporting job creation

298

Industrial Relations journal