Content uploaded by Edward Yates
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Edward Yates on Dec 11, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X17744647
Economic and Industrial Democracy
1 –23
© The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0143831X17744647
journals.sagepub.com/home/eid
The strategic economic
governance of Greater
Manchester’s local labour
market by the local state:
Implications for young workers
Edward Yates
University of Leicester, UK
Ian Clark
Nottingham Trent University, UK
Abstract
This article explores how work and employment conditions for young workers are affected by
the actions of the state at the spatial scale of the locality. The article argues that young workers
have experienced deteriorating labour market conditions following shifts in the form which
capitalist accumulation takes in the UK. This shift has altered the composition of the national state
which has in turn led to changes in how it regulates both local labour markets and the economic
strategies of the local state. One result of these changes is the diffusion of neoliberal labour
market reforms which have led to negative material consequences for young workers; these are
manifest in the expansion of low-waged work concentrated in a small number of sectors, and
characterized by an intensified labour process.
Keywords
Economic change, employment, local labour market, local state, young workers
Introduction
This article connects work and shifts in the political economy of the British state by
exploring how work and employment conditions for young workers – those aged 16–241
Corresponding author:
Edward Yates, Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures, University of Leicester, Fielding
Johnson Building, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.
Email: ey29@le.ac.uk
744647EID0010.1177/0143831X17744647Economic and Industrial DemocracyYates and Clark
research-article2018
Article
2 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
– are affected by the actions of the state at the ‘spatial scale’ of ‘the locality’. Spatial
scale in this sense refers to the geographic spaces within which capitalist processes
occur, as well as referring to where labour concretely experiences the outcomes of capi-
talist processes (Harvey, 1989a, 2006). The spatial scale of the locality is important
because it is at this scale that key social processes occur, most notably: the reproduction
of household economies, provision of state welfare services, and paid labour, which is
characterized by a varied labour process. A focus on the state is insightful because it is
the local state which is immediately responsible for confronting the contradictory out-
comes of capitalist production and the labour process within a locality.
We argue that since the early 1980s young workers have experienced worsening
labour market conditions due to shifts in processes of capitalist accumulation – from
what this article calls ‘full-employment’ capitalism to neoliberal capitalism. This shift is
characterized by an aggressive re-assertion of the power of capital which manifests in the
labour process, labour markets, and at the level of state action. Neoliberal capitalism is
also marked by the tendency of capital to accumulate surplus value through the appro-
priation of value, rather than through the productive accumulation of value (Fine, 2013).
Full-employment capitalism saw a contested diffusion of mass production and mass con-
sumption integrated within a broadly defined but equally contested political compromise
between state planners, capital and labour. Accumulated capital in the form of profit was
then appropriated from existing value produced by labour; this circulation of productive
capital redistributed surplus-value to labour via productivity gains, and to capital via
investment in capital stock. The compromises which facilitated full-employment capital-
ism as an accumulation regime became unsustainable from the 1970s onwards as falling
rates of profits led to increased class conflict, which in turn has resulted in a falling
labour share of income and a re-commodification of labour (Stockhammer et al., 2016;
Thompson, 2013). The re-composition of the state and associated processes that result
from these shifts in accumulation impact on the form of labour market intervention,
associated regulations, and on the very capacity of the state to intervene, particularly at
the level of the local state, which has undergone substantial transformation (Brenner,
2004; Greer, 2016; Hastings and Heyes, 2016). Accordingly the article addresses two
research questions. First, in what ways do changes in local governance and associated
changes in the political economy of work ground and re-focus capitalist accumulation
away from the nation state towards capital – a shift from ‘full-employment capitalism’
towards neoliberal capitalism? Second, what is the impact of these changes on young
workers in Greater Manchester?
Why Greater Manchester? Why young workers?
The metropolitan county of Greater Manchester2 was selected as a focus of study due to
the character of its political economy: the county experienced a period of marked decline
throughout the postwar period, reaching a nadir in the 1980s, as deindustrialization led
in 1983 to long-term unemployment rates of 47.6% for men and 29.8% for women (Peck
and Emmerich, 1992: 29). Since the 1980s local state managers have presented an image
of the county which highlights its renaissance from deindustrialization to that of a suc-
cessful, ‘post-industrial’ county characterized by a diverse local economy (McDermot,
Yates and Clark 3
2015). Local elites – in particular local state executives and members of prominent local
business fora – point to the Greater Manchester Devolution Agreement, in which the
county gains greater oversight of £7 billion of central government funding and increased
retention of business rates revenue, as the culmination of the success of their local eco-
nomic strategy (HM Treasury, 2014). However, Greater Manchester is affected by high
and increasing levels of low-paid employment3 (New Economy, 2015), rising inequality
(Centre for Cities, 2014) and an absence of affordable housing (Greater Manchester
Combined Authority [GMCA], 2015). All three of these social outcomes are felt most
keenly by young people (Clark and Heath, 2014). By focusing on the role of the local
state in shaping labour market outcomes this article reveals how the imperatives of capi-
talist accumulation cajole the state to pursue economic strategies which affect different
types of labour differentially, leading to differentiated labour processes.
The established literature suggests a worsening of labour market conditions for young
people – as of 2016 the UK youth unemployment rate is 13.7%, which is 2.7 times higher
than all-age unemployment4 (Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2016) and the youth
unemployment ratio is 20.2%; an historical high in the UK (O’Reilly et al., 2015).
Similarly, while 21% of all-age workers in the UK are in low-paid employment, that
figure is 40% for workers aged 21–25 and 77% for workers aged 16–20 (Clarke and
D’Arcy, 2016: 20). To explore the research questions, the article is divided into four
parts: part one provides an overview of shifts in the British state and defines the term the
‘local state’. Part two contains an empirical overview of Greater Manchester’s govern-
ance arrangements, particularly those which relate to local economic governance. Part
three provides empirical evidence to demonstrate how local economic strategies affect
labour market outcomes for young workers. Part four contains a discussion which exam-
ines the limits of these strategies, and is followed by a conclusion.
Research methods
This research is based on findings from a local labour market study of the metropolitan
county of Greater Manchester undertaken in 2015–2016 which draws on 32 semi-struc-
tured interviews with local state officials and politicians, local entrepreneurs and CEOs.
The interviews were transcribed and coded in order to carry out systematic thematic
analysis. In addition to this primary research extensive desk research was undertaken to
examine existing local policy documents, economic reports and data-sets.
Neoliberal capitalism and a transformed state
The two research questions connect work and the shift in the political economy of the
British state by outlining how the move from full-employment capitalism to neoliberal
capitalism is grounded in the labour market experiences of young workers. The article
outlines the motives and instruments of the shift in the class character of the state and
specifies how some of these macro-level changes are grounded in deteriorating employ-
ment opportunities and by association worsening labour process experiences at work.
The contemporary British state promotes austerity and welfare retrenchment policies
which create significant labour market inequalities, such as low-paid, precarious work
4 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
which particularly affects young workers (Papadopoulos, 2014; Selenko and Pils, 2016).
These labour market conditions are enabled and facilitated in part by the decline of
embedded liberal policies which existed under full-employment capitalism (Crouch,
2011; Harvey, 2007; Standing, 2011). The institutional structure of Britain’s political
economy in the postwar period meant that ‘embedded liberalism’ (Brenner et al., 2010)
positively restrained the entrepreneurial zeal of capital by the application of active eco-
nomic and industrial strategies such as capital controls, wage councils and sectoral level
collective bargaining (Brown et al., 2009). These features were complemented by the
institutional power of trade unions, which afforded workers the structural capacity to
resist degradation of work and employment imposed on labour by capital.
Young workers benefitted in this period from the presence of well-developed internal
labour markets within large firms, characterized by established training schemes and
well-defined entry points for young workers (MacDonald, 1998). These conditions were
particularly evident in the public sector (Winchester and Bach, 1999), and in engineering
firms (Clements, 1958). Job opportunities in these sectors for young people were often
‘sheltered’, meaning that competition was restricted to young people (Ashton et al.,
1990). However, while embedded liberalism delivered good economic performance up
until the 1960s it began to break down in the early 1970s, when supporters of what is now
termed neoliberalism were poised to free capital from broader socio-economic commit-
ments established in Britain’s postwar full-employment state.
Neoliberalism is a broad-ranging political project which, under Thatcherism in the
UK, centred on ‘disembedding’ markets from political constraints associated with
embedded liberalism to focus on deregulation, privatization and the creation of new mar-
kets through sustained financial deregulation and liberalization (Crouch, 2011; Harvey,
2007: 19–30). Neoliberal elites have unravelled the UK’s postwar economic settlement
which informed the embedded liberalism of full-employment capitalism; a shift which
encountered no significant bloc of business opposition lobbying for an alternative corpo-
ratist or coordinated policy (Van der Pijl, 2006, 2015). This shift resulted in the emer-
gence of a globally focused neoliberalism which has dismantled collective structures for
labour, the local state and associated communities.
For labour a particular effect of these shifts and transitions relates to the transformed
role of the British economy in a new international division of labour (Charnock and
Starosta, 2016) and the attractiveness of Britain for inward foreign direct investment
(FDI). Multinational firms are encouraged to set up branch plants which are subject to
intra-firm internationally focused competition for work within dispersed global value
chains (Hammer and Riisgaard, 2015: 84–85). Between 2010 and 2016, approximately
17,994 jobs were created as a result of inward FDI investment in Greater Manchester,
meaning that inward FDI was responsible for approximately 19% of new jobs created in
the period (Manchester Inward Development Agency Service [MIDAS], 2016). There are
opportunities for young workers to find employment resulting from inward investment,
although the benefits of such work are skewed heavily in favour of capital due to limited
capacity for resistance from trade unions, which were formerly able to reduce wage dif-
ferentials between high and low earners within sectors (Blanchflower and Bryson, 2010).
As our empirical research demonstrates, many young people in Manchester are employed
not in ‘headline’ sectors of finance or advanced manufacturing, but in more elementary
Yates and Clark 5
sectors including business services, care and retail and hospitality. Within these sectors
young people tend to find themselves employed in low-paid, lower occupational roles, a
trend which is increasing: 40.6% of young people in Greater Manchester work in the retail
and hospitality sectors, and 55% of young people work in sales, customer service and
elementary occupations (see Tables 1 and 2).
The capacities of the local state
Shifts in British political economy directly affect the composition of the local state. In
the 1960s the British state diffused ‘spatial Keynesian’ redistributive policies designed to
aid underperforming economic regions (Brenner, 2004; Martin and Sunley, 1997). The
re-assertion of capitalist power under neoliberalism saw a renewed state windup these
policies. Instead localities began to engage in ‘entrepreneurial urbanist’ strategies which
relied on securing private capital to fund local economic development as public funding
from central government declined (Harvey, 1989b). This reliance causes local economic
Table 1. Employment of 16- to 24-year-old and all-age workers in Greater Manchester, by
sector.
Employee jobs by
sector
Employees
aged 16–24
in Greater
Manchester (%)
All-age
employment
in Greater
Manchester
Greater
Manchester
(%)
North-West
Region of
Great Britain
(%)
Great
Britain
(%)
Total employee jobs 167,233 (100) 1,196,900 100.0 100.0 100.0
Primary services:
Agriculture and mining
(A–B)
2005 (1.1) 500 0.0 0.1 0.4
Energy and water (D–E) 12,800 1.1 1.0 1.1
Manufacturing (C) 8808 (5.3) 104,700 8.8 10.3 8.5
Construction (F) 11,031 (6.6) 50,400 4.2 4.5 4.5
Wholesale and retail,
including motor trades
(G)
67,979a (40.6) 190,800 15.9 16.2 15.9
Transport storage (H) 8772b (5.3) 57,400 4.8 4.5 4.5
Accommodation and
food services (I)
– 75,300 6.3 7.1 7.1
Information and
communication (J)
– 37,800 3.2 2.7 4.1
Financial and other
business services (K–N)
26,492 (15.9) 288,800 24.1 20.5 22.2
Public admin, education
and health (O–Q)
29,921 (17.9) 326,100 27.2 28.5 27.4
Other services (R–S) 12,225 (7.3) 52,400 4.4 4.5 4.4
Source: UK Census 2011; ONS Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES).
aThis figure includes accommodation and food services workers.
bThis figure includes information and communication workers.
6 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
Table 2. Occupations of 16- to 24-year-olds in Greater Manchester, 2011.
Occupation Age 16 and
over in each
occupation
Age 16–24
occupation
Percentage
of 16 and
over in each
occupation
(%)
Percentage of
16–24 who
work in each
occupation
(%)
Percentage
of each
occupation
made up by 16-
to 24-year-olds
Change since 2001
of percentage of
each occupation
made up by 16- to
24-year-olds
All categories 1,223,865 167,233 100% 100% 14% −1
1. Managers, directors and senior officials 115,717 5611 9% 3% 5% −1
2. Professional occupations 202,432 11,640 17% 7% 6% −1
3. Associate professional and technical
occupations
146,373 16,246 12% 10% 11% −1
4. Administrative and secretarial occupations 146,473 18,749 12% 11% 13% −2
5. Skilled trades occupations 129,634 16,432 11% 10% 13% −1
6. Caring, leisure and other service
occupations
119,786 19,645 10% 11% 16% −1
7. Sales and customer service occupations 122,012 40,415 10% 24% 33% 0
8. Process, plant and machine operatives 97,547 6160 8% 4% 6% −3
9. Elementary occupations 143,891 32,335 12% 19% 22% +2
Source: UK Census 2001; UK Census 2011.
Yates and Clark 7
strategies to become competitive in the pursuit of capital investment and in order to
secure funding bids (Cochrane et al., 1996, 2002). Local councils can experience sudden
and unexpected cuts to their budgets as a result of central government executive control
over local government spending levels (Lowndes and Gardner, 2016). This financial
insecurity means that local councils have to actively pursue growth-orientated strategies
which rely on the private sector. These circumstances have worsened since 2010 due to
the increased ferocity with which local government cuts have been implemented, stimu-
lating the argument that central government has ‘locked-in’ neoliberal measures at the
local level (Peck, 2014).
In spite of these structural limitations on its actions, it is the local state which confronts
the immediate consequences of capitalist accumulation. The local state is charged with
managing and maintaining the ‘production–reproduction nexus’ (PRN) within a locality.
The PRN is defined as the ‘interrelationship between production and reproduction via the
labour force in a geographic territory’ (Gough, 2014: 28). The strategies pursued by the
local state to achieve this can be characterized in two broad categories: neoliberal and
social democratic. Neoliberal strategies promote the flow of all capitals and emphasize
discipline over labour via enhanced mobility, spatial fragmentation and increased compe-
tition. In turn these strategies focus on the reduction and equalization of factor costs and
final prices and effectively use the national state to minimize regulation by the local state
(Gough, 2004: 203). This approach subordinates the local state to individual capitals and
capital in general by expanding the influence of value relations at the local level; the local
state must engage with capital in order to maintain social production and reproduction,
although this can result in increased commodification and marketization of social life. In
contrast to neoliberal strategies, social democratic strategies are characterized by the crea-
tion of socio-economic organizations designed to increase productivity and foster coop-
eration between labour and capital. The aim of this approach is to promote a qualitative
differentiation between local economies and the autonomy of the local state from capital
to secure accumulation on a more independent political footing (Gough, 2004: 205). The
local state can attempt to achieve this aim by promoting the growth of specific sectors of
the local economy, or by encouraging the incorporation of other stakeholders – such as
community groups and trade unions – in the governance of the local economy.
The outcomes of local economic strategies are heavily contingent on a number of fac-
tors. For example, the local state may attempt to create ‘decent jobs’ in the private sector
by promoting the growth of particular high value-added sectors to re-orientate its local
economic structures so that they assist the accumulation of private capital. Local state
managers seek to achieve this by creating a subsidized investment climate. Measures
associated with this include subsidized business rates and associated financial incentives,
a well-developed transport infrastructure, and a suitably skilled labour supply (MIDAS,
2016). However, these local conditions are to the advantage of firms which operate a
business model which is characterized by low-wage, low value-added growth. Evidence
from existing research shows that there is a tendency for this to occur as firms which are
attracted by financial incentives are often those with low levels of productivity and which
have a proclivity to engage in rent-seeking behaviour (Sonn and Lee, 2012). This means
that the firm will take financial incentives that are offered without attempting to generate
correspondingly high levels of employment for the local economy.
8 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
The governance of Greater Manchester’s local labour
market
The contemporary governance of Greater Manchester is the result of historical pro-
cesses of transformation which began with the 1985 abolition of the ‘municipal
socialist’ Greater Manchester County Council, which was hostile to working with
either central government or private capital (Quilley, 2000). Abolition led to the crea-
tion of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA), which in turn
ushered in a period of ‘elite localism’ (Cochrane et al., 1996) wherein local govern-
ment began to cooperate closely with national government and private sector capital
(Peck and Ward, 2002). In spite of the limitations of this approach to local govern-
ance,5 the development of Greater Manchester in recent decades is viewed as a suc-
cess by local state managers who point to its economic growth in comparison to
neighbouring city-regions, such as Liverpool or Leeds–Bradford (McDermot, 2015).
In successfully overcoming the high unemployment of the 1980s, Manchester’s state
managers argue that a post-manufacturing local economy has developed where a
majority of employment is in the service sector. One local economic manager sug-
gested that this was partially due to:
… a sense of [voluntary] collaborative working in Manchester’s [local government] that far
exceeded that of Liverpool and Leeds–Bradford, [which along with] Sheffield have not taken
off in [the] same way as Manchester. (Interview, director of economic strategy, local university,
11 January 2016)
The manner in which capital informs and shapes the strategic direction of governance
in the county is evidenced in the central role of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise
Partnership (GMLEP). According to its own official statement of intent, the GMLEP sits
‘at the heart of Greater Manchester’s governance arrangements, ensuring that business
leaders are empowered to set the strategic course, determine local priorities and drive
growth and job creation within the city-region’6 (GMLEP, 2015). The GMLEP is made
up of two local councillors, the mayor of Greater Manchester and nine representatives
from the private sector. The GMLEP has no representatives from voluntary organizations
or trade unions, despite a White Paper recommending the inclusion of these groups
(Ward, 2014). Along with the AGMA, the GMLEP is responsible for overseeing the
Manchester Growth Company (MGC). The MGC is made up of a number of companies
which promote economic development across the county in six priority functions: strat-
egy and research; marketing; business support and finance; organization development
services; skills; and employment (see Figure 1 for a visualization of this).
This network of governance actors aims to ensure continued economic growth through
the promotion of Greater Manchester as a site of investment with favourable conditions
for capital. This approach can be understood as an attempt to overcome the limits of
economic governance in Greater Manchester in the 1990s, which shifted too much power
directly to the private sector. Instead, the MGC seeks to govern the local economy for
and on behalf of private capital. Rather than allowing private capital to directly govern
the county, the local state has established a series of quasi-autonomous bodies which are
Yates and Clark 9
shielded from popular pressures and which have the broad aim of advancing the rate of
capital accumulation within the locality. This was acknowledged by one planner, who
stated that:
… you can never really expect business leaders to run the state, that’s not what they do … they
run businesses and let’s hope they keep doing it. So how [do] you co-opt, in a non-executive
fashion, functioning of business leaders? It’s [through] the [GM]LEP. (Interview, senior
strategic planner, AGMA, 4 February 2016)
Both the MGC and the GMLEP are unaccountable to the electorate and sustain self-
determining governance structures which are a form of neoliberal, depoliticized local
governance in which power is transferred from elected officials to unaccountable institu-
tions (Burnham, 2001). One local councillor voiced concerns on the diminished role that
local councillors have as a result of shifts in governance, in which decision-making
power has been transferred from elected representatives to the executive branch, and
business leaders:
… we’re cardboard cut-outs – [the executive] wheel us out when there’s a meeting, we stick our
hands up and say yeah, and go home. … I’ve felt totally surplus to requirement for ages now,
and I get the impression that many councillors do but won’t admit it. (Interview, local councillor,
8 February 2016)
The limited capacity of the local state to intervene in order to generate progressive
local labour market outcomes was described succinctly by the head of research at a local
economic development agency, who stated that:
Figure 1. Structure of the Manchester Growth Company.
Source: MGC website; AGMA.
10 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
… 90% of what happens in Greater Manchester [local government] has no control over.
(Interview, head of research, local economic development agency, 9 March 2016)
The limited capability of the local state does not mean local state actors believe their
actions are completely ineffectual. Local officials are proud of their achievements; this is
demonstrated in interview data:
One of our pitches post-recession has been about costs, [businesses have] access to highly
skilled graduates, and the cost[s] of doing business [in Greater Manchester] are about 40%
lower than London, because of property costs, wage, salary costs. That’s a massive pitch –
we’ve seen a lot of businesses who have relocated out of London – not [head offices] – but
back-office [functions] … economic growth in the city has [come from], less known companies
relocating here. (Interview, council development officer, 4 April 2016)
Other officials spoke of the way in which they have successfully sought to interact
with and condition young workers in the locality:
[We] recognized that businesses have changed over time [and we have had to] respond to these
changes. Apprenticeships have to [go] where jobs are, in financial [and] business services, and
health and social [care] … part of our youth policy work is working alongside schools so they
understand careers available for young people in Greater Manchester when they leave.
(Interview, senior planner, economic development agency, 2 May 2016)
This latter point was expanded upon by another official, who stated that one aim of
local youth initiatives was to ‘manage the aspirations’ of young people, as ‘graduates
expect too much from labour markets’ (Interview, local planner, economic development
agency, 1 June 2016). The fact that local officials seek to shape the perceptions of young
people so they are better suited to working in a low-wage labour market demonstrates
that officials do not foresee the quality of jobs in Greater Manchester improving in the
medium- to long-term.
Strategies of economic growth
The pressures of entrepreneurial urbanism mean cities must engage in competitive
growth policies in order to prevent urban decline. In Greater Manchester key strategies
for economic growth centre on the extension of labour market reforms, in particular
those focusing on moving the economically inactive into work, and on up-skilling the
labour force. The result of these strategies is mixed and leaves some young workers lan-
guishing in low-quality employment. For example, Greater Manchester’s eye-catching
aggregate growth figures7 mask the qualitative form which employment growth has
taken in the county. The strategy of economic growth that is pursued in Greater
Manchester is based on efforts to develop its internal capacities, notably through infra-
structure development and promotion of ‘headline’ sectors in which the county has a
competitive advantage. These sectors include advanced manufacturing, finance and pro-
fessional services, health sciences, and the digital sector (New Economy, 2016a). The
growth of these sectors is supported by the MGC which provides local boosterism and
Yates and Clark 11
support to existing businesses through its ‘Growth Hub’ business innovator8 (AGMA,
2009: 28).
Efforts by state managers to promote headline sectors aim to coordinate and regulate
economic growth, directing resources into prescribed sites and sectors. These strategies
are limited, in part because they downplay the significance of the relationship between
cities and wider socio-economic processes at other spatial scales, in particular between
Greater Manchester and speculative financial flows, as well as the skewed relationship
between the local and national state which favours the latter. Therein local policy devel-
opment is limited as local state managers are unable to respond to external shocks or
abrupt national policy shifts, or to challenge deep-rooted problems which are the result
of historical political economy. As a result changes in industrial composition in
Manchester have embedded concentrated areas of enduring unemployment. A narrative
which emerges from interview data is the belief among local planners that economic
growth will lead to further devolution of powers from central government which will
allow them to act with greater autonomy, so as to further grow the economy. This opti-
mism is evident in the quote below:
I think [the local government executives] are better here [at handling devolved powers] than
anywhere else … and have achieved an incredible amount over the last five years … in terms
of being able to control more of [Greater Manchester’s] destiny, and that’s a significant step,
and has been the narrative [for] 10 years, but in [the] last few years it has significantly been a
step change … and that does enable better long term planning. If you give Manchester more
powers, it will compete more with other cities … I would welcome more [inter-city competition],
different tax rates, different branding, different ways of competing for population, for talent, for
industries, for sectors … [it’s] how America made itself great, and the more you get in the UK,
the better. (Interview, former head of strategy, economic development agency, 6 January 2016)
The limitations of devolution as a strategy are not countenanced by local planners,
possibly as doing so would undermine the dominant narrative of Greater Manchester as
a successful city, as well as upsetting more fundamental ideas upon which the growth and
reform strategy is built, chiefly that any growth is good as it will lead to long-term eco-
nomic independence.
Extending existing labour market reforms
British labour markets have experienced waves of reform in recent decades as part of ongo-
ing processes to stimulate labour productivity in order to enhance the competitiveness of
UK-based capital. Across Greater Manchester 22% of the labour force is educated to national
vocational qualification (NVQ) level 2 and 32% are educated to NVQ level 4 or higher,
while 11.6% have no qualifications at all. This compares unfavourably to the national pic-
ture (20%, 36% and 9% respectively [ONS, 2014a]). Low levels of skills among the labour
force are seen as a problem by local elites. According to official documentation:
… a quarter of the productivity gap between Greater Manchester and the UK as a whole [is]
caused by higher than average levels of worklessness and low levels of economic activity. The
other three quarters [are] caused by lower levels of economic output, with people in work not
12 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
as productive as elsewhere in the country. Low skill levels are a key contributing factor to this.
(AGMA, 2013: 11, our emphasis)
Labour market weaknesses are identified by local state managers as a key factor
which prevents the county from achieving high growth rates. The strategy to overcome
these weaknesses centres on active labour market policies to tackle perceived ‘workless-
ness’ and a focus on improving the skills base of Greater Manchester. This approach
targets workless labour and is generalized from contemporary national policy which
focuses on austerity, retrenchment and the re-commodification of labour as part of a
‘skills as welfare’ agenda9 (Nunn, 2008). These aims witness the introduction of policies
which have the effect of coercing individuals back into labour markets, often through
disciplinary measures such as removal of welfare benefits. These measures exemplify
neoliberal approaches to labour which eschew any attempt to understand or resolve the
complex and multi-faceted reasons why individuals might become workless, and instead
individualize the negative consequences of unemployment onto the unemployed (Nunn,
2012).
Local economic outcomes
A key question is whether the application of neoliberal strategies by local state managers
has been successful in increasing productivity, and if mechanisms exist for increases to
be distributed among workers. Although gross valued added (GVA) has increased across
the county, it does not follow that there are equal rises in productivity across all sectors.
In reality, the majority of sectors in Greater Manchester’s local economy are character-
ized by lower than average GVA per job. The sectors of the local economy which have
facilitated economic growth are a mixture of aforementioned headline sectors, but are
also sectors which are characterized by low-wage, low-productivity employment. The
five sectors with levels of productivity lower than £30,000 per job in Greater Manchester
‘correspond with the lowest paying sectors … [and these] low productivity sectors
account for a growing share of jobs. In 2000 they represented 35% of employment. By
2014 the proportion was 40%’ (New Economy, 2016a). The five elementary sectors are:
hospitality, retail, accommodation, cleaning and residential care. Low productivity sec-
tors such as these are characterized by accumulation strategies with limited potential for
productivity growth as surplus is generated through the intensification of the labour pro-
cess and squeezing returns to labour. Employers in these sectors pursue ‘low value prod-
uct market strategies’ where competition is based on ‘on low cost, low skill, low
specification products and services’ (New Economy, 2016a; UKCES, 2013).
Evidently an accumulation strategy based on low productivity, labour-intensive
work with low levels of technological investment leads to a local occupational distribu-
tion which is skewed towards de-skilled, low-waged, low-discretion jobs for many
young people. This is demonstrated by the data in Tables 1 and 2, which highlight the
sectoral and occupational distribution of young workers in Greater Manchester. Young
workers are nearly twice as likely to be employed in elementary occupations as all-age
workers, and young workers make up 22% of the workforce in elementary occupations.
Additionally, young workers are nearly 2.5 times as likely to be employed in sales and
Yates and Clark 13
customer service occupations as all-age workers, and make up 33% of this occupational
workforce. In the period 2001–2011 there was a 1% reduction in the numbers of young
workers employed in the top three occupational categories, alongside a 2% rise in num-
bers of young workers employed in the lowest occupational category (see Table 2).
Sales and customer services occupations are predominantly found in the retail sector,
which has an average weekly wage of £344. This weekly average is significantly lower
than for the public sector (£504), finance and business services (£635), or for the service
sector in general (£488) (ONS, 2017). Additionally, young workers in all sectors are
affected negatively by the national minimum wage, which institutionalizes lawful dis-
crimination based on age.
The labour process in elementary occupations restricts productivity increases due to
the application of de-skilled labour-use strategies for youth workers. In the business
service companies which were studied, young workers engaged in a labour process char-
acterized by one or two tasks – such as answering calls, processing customer service
requests, or inputting data – which were repeated throughout the day. Worker discretion
was low and attempts to raise productivity took the form of intrusive workplace surveil-
lance which ranged from listening in on phone-calls, random sampling of workplace
documents for quality checks, to unannounced observations of work throughout the day.
These interventions, coupled with the use of open-plan office space and target-based
performance management, creates a generalized atmosphere of ‘pressure’ and ‘unease’
for young workers (Interview notes, office manager, business services company, 15 April
2016). One young worker employed at a business-to-business (B2B) call centre described
their employer as being ‘totally unethical, from top to bottom’ due to the arbitrary way in
which line managers displayed favouritism towards staff when allocating bonuses, and
when disciplining staff for alleged underperformance. In the same interview it was noted
that younger staff were perceived by line managers as being ‘less trustworthy … [and]
unreliable … [than] older team members’ and as a result their work was more closely
scrutinized (Interview, call centre worker, B2B sales company, 21 September 2016).
Greater Manchester reflects the national picture where the absence of sustained re-
investment in the capital stock has successfully squeezed labour costs directly in the
labour process because many jobs in manufacturing and services are highly de-skilled
and subject to significant work intensification, fragmentation and ‘flexibilization’
(Rubery, 2015). UK national accounts demonstrate that since 1982 the wage share of
national income has been less than 56% whereas in the 1970s it rose as high as 61% of
national income (OECD, 2015). The wage share is defined to include wages and non-
wage benefits such as pensions and national insurance contributions. These inclusions
are important because pensions and national insurance payments represent reproduction
costs for labour. For capital the motive to devalue labour is ultimately to boost short-term
profits, whereas the motive for austerity and welfare retrenchment is to reduce the cost
of reproducing labour-power for capital and the state via the re-commodification of
labour. The outcome of these neoliberal policies has been an increasing debt burden for
labour, as it seeks to sustain consumption levels. These trends are evident in Greater
Manchester, which is ranked third nationwide for levels of individual indebtedness:
41.1% of Manchester residents are classed as over-indebted and 21% of these are aged
18–25 (Money Advice Service [MAS], 2013).
14 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
Growth in service sector employment is influenced by the availability of labour rather
than by capital stock; accordingly there is an abundance of cheap, available labour in
Greater Manchester in the form of young workers. The elementary sectors act like a
‘sponge, soaking up’ workers into low-productivity jobs, rather than acting as a sector
which supports the development of more productive employment (Erdem and Glyn,
2001: 53–60). In Greater Manchester the supply of young workers has been indirectly
increased by the local state due to the freedom it has afforded to property developers to
construct numerous private rental apartments in Greater Manchester’s city-centre which
are occupied almost exclusively by young workers (Folkman et al., 2016).
Notwithstanding the growth strategy for Manchester resting on lower productivity
jobs, the skills shortage is seen by local state managers as a significant labour market
problem limiting productivity increases across the county. This tension is illustrated by
documents which advocate the need to ‘bridge the skills gap’ and ‘overcome skills mis-
matches’ (AGMA, 2009, 2013). Specifically, skills policy takes the form of attempting
to increase the numbers of workers with NVQ2+ qualifications as Greater Manchester
has above national-average levels of workers with no formal qualifications. In part, this
focus on skills comes from surveys of local businesses across the county, which found
that local employers viewed skills shortages as the biggest barrier to growth (New
Economy, 2016b). As a result skills policies are distinctly employer-led, and have at the
core, the aim of improving business growth. As the 2013 Stronger Together strategy
document states: ‘[AGMA] will bring employers together with providers and govern-
ment agencies to narrow the gap between what employers want and what the skills sys-
tem is able to deliver’ (AGMA, 2013: 50). The aim of this skills strategy is to respond
narrowly to pre-existing employer needs, thereby reinforcing the influence of private
employers and reinforcing the current form which capital accumulation takes in Greater
Manchester. As one strategic planner remarked:
… if you rib most politicians not too hard, [and] you say ‘would you rather have lots of jobs, or
less jobs but better jobs?’ they’ll all say lots of jobs, always … I think that everywhere you do
see the hourglass economy, you do see the high competition for high quality jobs, which hoover
up more and more of the wealth essentially, of the capital spend … and you do see higher
volumes of lower [quality] jobs. (Interview, former head of strategy, local economic development
agency, 6 January 2016)
Labour market outcomes for young workers
Young workers in Greater Manchester are affected both indirectly and directly by the
actions of the state. Indirect effects are outcomes of the economic strategy pursued by the
local state, such as its neoliberal approach to sectoral development which has resulted in
high levels of lower quality jobs. Direct effects are the result of labour market reforms
and interventions, such as active labour market policies. Labour market reforms are
problematic as they characterize youth unemployment and underemployment primarily
as a productivity problem, rather than flowing from shifts in how capitalist accumulation
occurs in Greater Manchester. This approach to labour market reform consolidates neo-
liberal accumulation strategies in Greater Manchester rather than seeking to develop the
Yates and Clark 15
autonomous productive capacity of young workers. As a result, interventions on youth
employment are framed in a context of increased competitiveness, as official documenta-
tion implies:
High levels of youth unemployment have held our economy back, leaving lasting negative
effects on the employment prospects of young people. Addressing this requires co-ordinated
action across a range of organisations, led by the Skills and Employment Partnership, to
broaden young people’s opportunities and ensure that they can compete more effectively in a
difficult labour market. (AGMA, 2013: 21)
Active labour market policies aim to respond to weak competition by improving the
skills and capacities of the local labour force. This response takes the form of training
provision, such as apprenticeships. At the local level there are numerous small-scale
policy interventions which primarily target unemployed youth and NEET (not in employ-
ment, education or training) status young people (ONS, 2015b). Talent Match and the
Greater Manchester Youth Contract Extension (GMYCE), both launched in 2004, are
examples of local state interventions. Talent Match provides jobs coaches to support
young people who are furthest from labour markets. GMYCE aims to assist young long-
term unemployed enter into employment by providing cash incentives to businesses
which hire young people. By its own admission, the AGMA has struggled to achieve the
targets it set for reducing youth unemployment: ‘All GM’s youth employment pro-
grammes are performing far better than they were but not quite to target. However, in a
climate of slightly increasing youth unemployment, this represents significant progress
and lessons learned from these need to be built into future activity’ (AGMA, 2016).
Despite the positive rhetoric, the failure to meet targets in the face of broader changes in
employment levels indicates how the local state is constrained from substantive interven-
tion in labour markets informed by social democratic aspirations. The nature of the tar-
gets themselves is also indicative of the contemporary focus of the local state: the aim is
to reduce youth unemployment and NEET status, rather than seek to facilitate the move-
ment into high-paid, higher productivity work.
Discussion: The limits of growth and reform strategies
Our findings and related arguments are discussed in terms of the two research questions
which the main body of the article addresses. The first concerns the extent to which
changes in the local governance of the state are informed by broader changes imple-
mented to support Britain’s neoliberal capitalism. The strategy of the local state in
Greater Manchester is to a large extent constrained by the national state, and the increased
power of capital, which national policy directly enables. The local state can no longer
pursue autonomous policies for job creation inspired by social democratic aspirations.
Instead of this, the local state apparatus aims to enable and create favourable conditions
for capital and private sector job creation, often flowing from inward investment.
However, the numbers of jobs created from inward FDI are limited, and most job crea-
tion is indigenous to Greater Manchester. It is the case that most growth is in low-waged
sectors meaning labour is forced into a reliance on debt-fuelled consumption (Folkman
16 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
et al., 2016). It is in the restrictions on local state autonomy that the shifts in capital accu-
mulation become evident.
In spite of the various economic strategies deployed by the local state, economic out-
comes in the county are mixed, and are largely detrimental to young workers. Although
the GVA of Greater Manchester’s economy grew at nearly double the national average in
2012 (AGMA, 2014), the increase in both low-paid work and economic inequality across
the county bring into question just how equitable this growth is for residents, as the out-
comes of economic growth are distributed unevenly across the working population. The
restructuring of capital in Greater Manchester into smaller, potentially less innovative
units in elementary sectors results from the promotion of labour market competition on
the basis of low wages and less regulation by the central state. This strategy is predicated
on employment growth through inward investment and indigenous growth of the ele-
mentary service economy, in tandem with a deliberate devaluing of youth labour. The
low-wage business models of local firms allow any productivity gains from such employ-
ment to be appropriated by investors and owners at the expense of retained profit for
further investment in innovation – the latter being a key aspect of full-employment capi-
talism (Clark, 2013).
The second research question centres on how young people in Manchester experience
changes in the state policy on work and employment. The sectors of Greater Manchester’s
local economy that are promoted as high-growth and high value-added have suffered a
decline in job longevity and retention, most notably financial services and manufacturing
(New Economy, 2016a). Similarly, while Greater Manchester has experienced high lev-
els of business start-ups, it has some of the lowest business survival rates of any UK
city-region, indicating that although Greater Manchester may be good at attracting busi-
ness, it is less successful at sustaining it (AGMA, 2015; Enterprise Research Council,
2017). This reflects the neoliberalism of free market economics where the creation of
market mechanisms is assumed in turn to create jobs. The creation and stimulation of
markets and market approaches to accumulation in the private and the public sector of
the national and local state are viewed by state managers as more democratic than the
processes of job creation in the embedded liberalism of full-employment capitalism.
Accordingly, the approach taken to labour market reform by the local state is similarly
limited in scope. The prominence given to skills-based solutions is marginal and because
of this low productivity within labour markets is attributed to the individual worker,
rather than to the structural weaknesses in the composition of the local labour market, or
the British political economy. Rather than trying to resolve structural labour market
issues – such as the presence of large numbers of businesses with low value-added busi-
ness models – the local state has instead continued to promote a discourse which indi-
vidualizes the skills issue. This approach aims to overcome perceived skills shortages
through the promotion of market-facing training, and associated notions of employabil-
ity and entrepreneurialism. A particular problem with this market-led approach to train-
ing provision is that markets are inherently limited in their ability to resolve skills
shortages; this is a recurrent feature of Britain’s largely voluntarist approach to skills and
training (Keep, 2000; Lloyd and Payne, 2016). Although some employers in Greater
Manchester identify skills shortages as a barrier to growth, many are unwilling to invest
in skills development, and resort to using temporary staffing agencies, or poaching
Yates and Clark 17
skilled workers, rather than investing in training (Ward, 2005). Policy documents dem-
onstrate this, stating that a major challenge preventing an up-skilling agenda is the dis-
tinct lack of employer engagement (GMCA, 2015).
The marginal impact of direct local state labour market interventions in job creation
raises the prospect that systemic structural issues may be the root of the problem, most
crucially shifts in the form that accumulation has taken in Greater Manchester towards
labour-intensive service sectors, and the shifts in the orientation of state managers
towards capital. The local state is unable to influence the direction of this change, and its
policies instead only mitigate the contradictory outcomes of capital accumulation.
Labour market policies implemented at the local level enable and reinforce shifts in
power towards capital; GMYCE, for example, is the local form of the national-level
Youth Contract programme which is a subsidy to business, as employers are rewarded
for merely engaging young people, often on a temporary basis. Little consideration is
given to the form of this employment, associated minimum wage levels or opportunities
for progression. Rather, the converse is true: young people are lawfully discriminated
against in the form of an age-stratified minimum wage enforced by the national state
which is compounded by the recent introduction of the national living wage, which only
applies to over 25s. The effect of the minimum wage and national wage devalues youth
labour-power in the form of wage-caps but aims to increase the productivity of young
workers through work intensification.
The current neoliberal form which local governance takes in Greater Manchester is
neither permanent nor inevitable. There is the potential for the composition of the local
state to shift in a way that is beneficial to young (and all-age) workers across the county.
Central to this shift would be a re-assertion of influence by local state managers to
actively intervene in the form which capitalist accumulation takes in Greater Manchester.
There are already several examples of this intervention across the county: local councils
are directly involved in coordinated economic development and job creation through the
majority ownership of the Manchester Airports Group, which owns Manchester (and
London Stansted) airport. Manchester Airport is economically successful and is one of
the reasons why the southern areas of the county have grown. Manchester Airport (and
its surrounding ‘airport city’ industrial parks) is at present situated within a low-tax
enterprise zone, which affects the types of businesses which develop and the working
conditions for those employed within these firms. However, this type of development
could easily be reshaped into a more sustainable form, in which the economic gains are
spread equally across Greater Manchester. It is not inconceivable for local planners to
realize that Manchester Airport – a local state-owned enterprise – is an economic model
which could be expanded across other parts of the locality. Such a shift could lead to a
revived local municipalism which would begin to counter decades of neoliberal develop-
ment which have led to the growth of low-pay, low-productivity jobs which exist in
abundance in Greater Manchester as of 2016.
The Devolution Agreement has the potential to further solidify the low-wage accumu-
lation model of Greater Manchester; this need not be the case. The powers which Greater
Manchester is set to gain over health and social care, transport and business rates could
be used to promote the growth of businesses which offer more equitable forms of employ-
ment to young workers, which would lead to higher wages which would ultimately lead
18 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
to the very economic growth which local state managers are so keen to develop. However,
these positive changes need be accompanied by increased accountability in local govern-
ment, which could come through a shifting of powers away from the executive branch
and mayor, and towards local legislators. Relatedly, devolved powers could be directed
to support the aforementioned revival of local municipalism across the county. The ini-
tial financial basis for some of these developments could come from the implementation
of a land value tax which is supported by the current mayor of Greater Manchester
(Latham, 2017).
Conclusion
To conclude, the aims of local economic strategies in Greater Manchester for young
people are confined to attempting to place young people into employment. This high-
lights the inability of the local state to moderate the contradictions of capital accumula-
tion across the county. In Greater Manchester, efforts to engage in ostensibly social
democratic strategies through the promotion of headline and elementary sectors have
instead increased the power of private employers. The increased power of private capi-
tal has further entrenched disciplinary value relations across the county and has done
little to mitigate or challenge enduring structural issues. The expansion of low-paid,
de-skilled, intensified insecure10 work, associated social polarization between the north
and south of the county and traffic and environmental problems continue apace. These
challenges, together with a looming housing crisis, risk a bigger crisis of social repro-
duction for young workers as neoliberal governance strategies are further embedded in
the local state.
These challenges reveal imperatives which local state strategies impose on employ-
ment conditions in Greater Manchester. Our theoretically informed primary research
demonstrates that the local state is severely restricted in its ability to actively intervene
in local labour markets. This is so because of the institutional composition of the British
state and because of shifts in the British political economy which see private capital
secure greater influence over local economies, a tendency that is reflected in the emer-
gence of ‘entrepreneurial urbanism’ in the local state. As a result of these processes,
attempts by the local state to engage in progressive reform necessarily occur within a
narrow range of policy options which reflect the needs of capital in Greater Manchester
– namely the need for largely de-skilled young workers who can enter the growing ser-
vice economy across the county.
The position of young workers in this accumulation strategy is unquestioned by local
politicians and state managers. Young workers are a source of cheap labour-power for the
service sector, and their low incomes are used as a source of profit for both the private
rental sector and to grow the consumptive economy of Greater Manchester. Few direct
attempts are made by the local state to try and intervene and coordinate the labour market
for young workers, other than to move the long-term unemployed into work or to up-skill
those with the lowest qualifications. All of this leads to large numbers of young workers
continuing to experience some of the worst aspects of contemporary labour markets,
marked by some of the poorest labour conditions and lowest levels of remuneration. As
we have discussed, there is the potential to promote social democratic accumulation
Yates and Clark 19
strategies as a potential remedy to the labour market problems facing young workers.
However, it must be noted that attempts at economic reform run the risk of the local state
succumbing to the same crises of political control and legitimacy which affected Greater
Manchester in the 1980s. This risk is ever-present for any state, local or national, which
seeks to simultaneously act within and against the market; the dilemma for young work-
ers is that they find themselves in the middle of this contradiction.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on
an earlier draft of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Notes
1. This definition of young workers is in line with Office for National Statistics (ONS) and
International Labour Organization (ILO) definitions (ILO, 2016; ONS, 2016).
2. Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county made up of 10 metropolitan boroughs: Bolton,
Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. As of
2016, total employment is over 1.3 million, of which approximately 187,000 are aged 16–24.
3. Low-paid employment is defined by the Low Pay Commission (2016) as employment in
which pay is below two-thirds of the median income.
4. All-age unemployment is 5.1%, as of 2016.
5. Some business leaders chose not to cooperate in a long-term strategy for the county. Instead,
local business leaders focused on ensuring the profitability of their own businesses and
the actions of some business leaders actively undermined attempts by local government to
engage in long-term strategic economic planning in the county by preventing the local state
from being able to act for capital in a collective sense (Peck and Tickell, 1995).
6. Greater Manchester is part of the Greater Manchester Statutory City Region, which comprises
the 10 metropolitan boroughs of Greater Manchester, alongside five neighbouring boroughs,
to create a geographical area with a population of 3.36 million, as of 2015 (ONS, 2015a).
7. Greater Manchester’s growth rate exceeded that of the South-East (excluding London) for the
first time in 2013.
8. The Growth Hub helps firms to access expertise and funding, as well as assisting with provi-
sion of flexible workspace at competitive rates (AGMA, 2009).
9. The ‘skills as welfare’ agenda is the process by which skills development becomes the route
to employment and comes to replace unemployment benefit as the preferred form of welfare
intervention for the unemployed or economically inactive.
10. Post-recession, full-time employment has increased by 1.7% in Greater Manchester. Self-
employment has grown by 32%. Flexible employment has grown by 23% and part-time
employment by 12%. These figures are for all-age workers (New Economy, 2016a: 18).
20 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
References
Ashton D, Malcolm M and Spilsbury M (1990) Restructuring the Labour Market: The Implications
for Youth. Portland, OR: International Specialized Book Service Incorporated.
Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (2009) Prosperity for All. Manchester: AGMA.
Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (2013) Stronger Together. Manchester: AGMA.
Association of Grater Manchester Authorities (2014) A Plan for Growth and Reform in Greater
Manchester. Manchester: AGMA.
Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (2015) Update on 2009 Greater Manchester
Strategy. Manchester: AGMA.
Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (2016) Joint Scrutiny Report of AGMA & GMCA:
Greater Manchester Strategy Annual Performance Report July 2016. Manchester: AGMA,
GMCA.
Blanchflower DG and Bryson A (2010) The wage impact of trade unions in the UK public and
private sectors. Economica 77(305): 92–109.
Brenner N (2004) New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood. Oxford:
Oxford University Press:
Brenner N, Peck J and Theodore N (2010) After neoliberalization? Globalizations 7(3): 327–
345.
Brown W, Bryson A and Forth J (2009) Competition and the retreat from collective bargaining. In:
Brown W, Bryson A, Forth J and Whitfield K (eds) The Evolution of the Modern Workplace.
Cambridge: University of Cambridge.
Burnham P (2001) New Labour and the politics of depoliticisation. The British Journal of Politics
and International Relations 3(2): 127–149.
Centre for Cities (2014) Cities Outlook 2014. London: Centre for Cities.
Charnock G and Starosta G (eds) (2016) The New International Division of Labour: Global
Transformation and Uneven Development. Dordrecht: Springer.
Clark I (2013) Templates for financial control: Management and employee interests under private
equity. Human Resource Management Journal 23(2): 144–159.
Clark T and Heath A (2014) Hard Times: The Divisive Toll of the Economic Slump. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Clarke S and D’Arcy C (2016) Low Pay Britain 2016. London: Resolution Foundation.
Clements RV (1958) The Choice of Careers by School-children. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Cochrane A, Peck J and Tickell A (1996) Manchester plays games: Exploring the local politics of
globalisation. Urban Studies 33(8): 1319–1336.
Cochrane A, Peck J and Tickell A (2002) Olympic dreams: Visions of partnership. In: Peck J
and Ward K (eds) City of Revolution: Restructuring Manchester. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, pp. 95–115.
Crouch C (2011) The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism. Cambridge: Polity.
Enterprise Research Council (2017) High performing firms and job creation: A longitudinal analy-
sis (1998–2013). ERC Insight Paper.
Erdem E and Glyn A (2001) Employment growth, structural change and capital accumulation. In:
ten Raa T and Schettkat R (eds) The Growth of Service Industries: The Paradox of Exploding
Costs and Persistent Demand. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Fine B (2013) Financialization from a Marxist perspective. International Journal of Political
Economy 42(4): 47–66.
Folkman P, Froud J, Sukhdev J et al. (2016) Manchester Transformed: Why We Need a Reset of
City Region Policy. Manchester: Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change.
Yates and Clark 21
Gough J (2004) Changing scale as changing class relations: Variety and contradiction in the poli-
tics of scale. Political Geography 23(2): 185–211.
Gough J (2014) Society, material life and geography. In: Pain R, Barke M and MacFarlene R (eds)
Introducing Social Geographies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority (2015) Greater Manchester Strategy Performance
Framework Report. Manchester: GMCA
Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership (2015) Greater Manchester Local Enterprise
Partnership’s Assurance Framework for Local Growth Funding. Manchester: GMLEP.
Greer I (2016) Welfare reform, precarity and the re-commodification of labour. Work, Employment
and Society 30(1): 162–173.
Grimshaw D (2011) What Do We Know About Low Wage Work and Low Wage Workers?
Analysing the Definitions, Patterns, Causes and Consequences in International Perspective.
Geneva: ILO.
Hammer N and Riisgaard L (2015) Labour and segmentation in value chains. In: Newsome K,
Taylor P, Bair J and Rannie A (eds) Putting Labour in its Place: Labour Process Analysis and
Global Value Chains. London: Palgrave.
Harvey D (1989a) The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Social Change.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Harvey D (1989b) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban gov-
ernance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 71(1): 3–17.
Harvey D (2006) Spaces of Global Capitalism. London: Verso.
Harvey D (2007) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hastings T and Heyes J (2016) Farewell to flexicurity? Austerity and labour policies in the
European Union. Economic and Industrial Democracy. Epub ahead of print 2 March 2016.
DOI: 10.1177/0143831X16633756
HM Treasury (2014) Devolution to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transition to
a Directly Elected Mayor. London: HM Treasury.
International Labour Organization (2016) World Employment and Social Outlook for Youth 2016.
Geneva: ILO.
Keep E (2000) Learning organisations, lifelong learning and the mystery of the vanishing employ-
ers. Economic Outlook 24(4): 18–26.
Latham P (2017) Who Stole the Town Hall? Bristol: Policy Press.
Lloyd C and Payne J (2016) Skills in the Age of Over-Qualification: Comparing Service Sector
Work in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Low Pay Commission (2016) National Minimum Wage. London: Low Pay Commission.
Lowndes V and Gardner A (2016) Local governance under the conservatives: Super-austerity,
devolution and the ‘smarter state’. Local Government Studies 42(3): 357–375.
McDermot J (2015) Manchester: UK’s new order? Financial Times, 20 February.
MacDonald R (1998) Youth, transitions and social exclusion: Some issues for youth research in
the UK. Journal of Youth Studies 1(2): 163–176.
Manchester Independent Economic Review (2008) Manchester Independent Economic Review.
MIER.
Manchester Inward Development Agency Service (MIDAS) (2016) Inward FDI investment.
Unpublished data-sets. Manchester.
Martin R and Sunley P (1997) The post-Keynesian state and the space economy. In: Lee R and
Wills J (eds) Geographies of Economies. London: Edward Arnold, pp. 278–289.
Money Advice Service (MAS) (2013) Indebted lives: The complexities of life in debt. MAS,
November.
New Economy (2015) Sectoral Deep Dives. Manchester: New Economy.
22 Economic and Industrial Democracy 00(0)
New Economy (2016a) Low Pay and Productivity (Report for Manchester City Council).
Manchester: New Economy.
New Economy (2016b) Greater Manchester Business Survey 2016. Manchester: New Economy.
Nunn A (2008) Restructuring the English working class for global competitiveness. Papers in the
Politics of Global Competitiveness 9.
Nunn A (2012) The political economy of competitiveness and social mobility. British Politics
7(2): 86–110.
Office for National Statistics (2002) UK Census 2001. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2012) UK Census 2011. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2014a) Annual Population Survey. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2014b) UK Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES):
2014 Revised and 2015 Provisional. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2015a) Population Estimates for UK, England and Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland: Mid-2015. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2015b) Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training
(NEET), May 2015. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2016) Young People in the Labour Market. London: ONS.
Office for National Statistics (2017) Average Weekly Earnings by Sector. London: ONS.
O’Reilly J, Eichhorst W, Gábos A et al. (2015) Five characteristics of youth unemployment in
Europe. Sage Open 5(1).
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (2015) The Labour Share in G20
Economies. Paris: OECD.
Papadopoulos O (2014) Youth unemployment discourses in Greece and Ireland before and during
the economic crisis: Moving from divergence to ‘contingent convergence’. Economic and
Industrial Democracy 37(3): 493–515.
Peck J (2014) Entrepreneurial urbanism: Between uncommon sense and dull compulsion.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 96(4): 396–401.
Peck J and Emmerich M (1992) Recession, restructuring and recession again: The transformation
of the Greater Manchester labour market. Manchester Geographer 13: 19–46.
Peck J and Tickell A (1995) Business goes local: Dissecting the ‘business agenda’ in Manchester.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19(1): 55–78.
Peck J and Ward K (eds) (2002) City of Revolution: Restructuring Manchester. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Quilley S (2000) Manchester first: From municipal socialism to the entrepreneurial city.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24(3): 601–615.
Rubery J (2015) Change at work: Feminisation, flexibilisation, fragmentation and financialisation.
Employee Relations 37(6): 633–644.
Selenko E and Pils K (2016) The after-effects of youth unemployment: More vulnerable per-
sons are less likely to succeed in Youth Guarantee programmes. Economic and Industrial
Democracy. Epub ahead of print 2 August 2016. DOI: 10.1177/0143831X16653186
Sonn JW and Lee D (2012) Revisiting the branch plant syndrome: Review of literature on foreign
direct investment and regional development in Western advanced economies. International
Journal of Urban Sciences 16(3): 243–259.
Standing G (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: A&C Black.
Stockhammer E, Durand C and List L (2016) European growth models and working class restruc-
turing: An international post-Keynesian political economy perspective. Environment and
Planning A 48(9): 1804–1828.
Thompson P (2013) Financialization and the workplace: Extending and applying the disconnected
capitalism thesis. Work, Employment and Society 27(3): 472–488.
Yates and Clark 23
UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills) (2013) UK Commission’s Employer Skills
Survey 2013: UK results, January 2014.
Van der Pijl K (2006) Global Rivalries – From Cold War to Iraq. London: Pluto.
Van der Pijl K (2015) Varieties of capitalism or dominant fractions? In: Westra R (ed.) The Future
of Capitalism after the Financial Crisis. Abingdon: Routledge.
Ward K (2005) Making Manchester flexible: Competition and change in the temporary staffing
industry. Geoforum 36(2): 223–240.
Ward M (2014) Local Enterprise Partnerships (SN/EP/5651, 7, 2014). London: House of
Commons.
Winchester D and Bach S (1999) Britain: The transformation of public sector employment rela-
tions. In: Bach S, Bordogna L, Rocca D and Winchester D (eds) Public Sector Employment
Relations in Europe: Transformation, Modernization or Inertia? London: Routledge.
Author biographies
Edward Yates is a researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures,
University of Leicester, UK, and specializes in the political economy of labour markets. He is cur-
rently conducting research on young workers in UK labour markets. Other research interests
include labour markets in the NHS, theories of political economy and research methodologies.
Ian Clark is Professor of Work and Employment at Nottingham Business School. He is currently
working with the British Academy Future of the Corporation programme and the Gangmasters and
Labour Abuse Authority on the spread of hand car washes. Ian has published widely on the diffu-
sion of new business models and the implications of these for work and employment.
