Labouring and Learning towards Competitiveness: The Future of Local Labour Markets after Harker, Leitch and Freud

Abstract

In 1999 Geddes and Newman highlighted five key tensions in New Labour's adoption of the ‘new centrist’ approach to Local Economic Development (LED). This article reflects on the continuing relevance of these tensions in relation local labour markets and in the light of the publication of three major independent reviews of policy in relation to child poverty, skills provision and welfare reform and the Government's response to these. It suggests that in the main the tensions identified by Geddes and Newman remain relevant, especially within the emerging national policy framework. However, it also ends optimistically, by suggesting that there is scope for LED actors to piece together an approach which can begin to move toward a resolution of the tensions through bringing together employment and skills policies at the local level, developing more effective models of partnership working (including with employers), and taking the sustainability agenda more seriously.

Notes

¹ See for instance: Corden et al. (2005, p. 85); Dewson (2005); Griffiths et al. (2006); Hirst et al. (2006); Knight et al. (2005); Policy Research Institute (2006).

² For instance see references in ministerial speeches and Freud (2007, p. 5) to Waddell and Burton (2006), which reviews evidence of the links between work and well-being. While Waddell and Burton find overwhelming evidence of the benefits of employment for heath, they are also clear that this needs to be good quality employment and to fit the individual's health requirements.

³ For example through the Jobs and Skills Pledges.