Spatially concentrated worklessness and neighoburhood policies: learning lessons from New Labour in the UK

Stephen Syrett & David North


The persistence and entrenchment of spatial concentrations of worklessness is a key characteristic of labour markets in the advanced industrial economies. Understanding the causes of worklessness concentrated within particular neighbourhoods requires linking together an understanding of wider process of labour market restructuring and the resulting new geographies of job loss and job growth with the operation of various negative cycles that reinforce patterns of persistent worklessness. Such cycles are particularly rooted within person and household factors and the overall population mix, and are compounded by the operation of housing markets and neighbourhood effects. After reviewing the causes of concentrated worklessness this paper will consider the development and effectiveness of work-related neighbourhood policies. Through an examination of the extensive set of employment related initiatives developed under successive New Labour governments in relation to deprived neighbourhoods between 1997-2010, the paper will consider the aims, outcomes and effectiveness of these initiatives and their relationship to the developing evidence base. The paper will conclude by identifying a series of factors that constrained the ability of this policy agenda to transform the employment fortunes of the UKs most deprived neighbourhoods