THE CHANGING GEOGRAPHY OF RECESSION - ANALYSES OF LOCAL-UNEMPLOYMENT TIME-SERIES

Unemployment in Great Britain rose again in the early 1990s. By contrast with previous experience, parts of southern England appeared to suffer earlier and more severely than some other parts of Britain. This reversal of traditional norms fuelled renewed interest in the impact of recession at the local and regional scale. Unemployment dynamics are examined over the period from June 1978 to December 1991 at the local labour market area scale. An analysis of turning points in local unemployment series confirms key differences in the timing of entry into the two recessions experienced during this period. Cluster analysis classification techniques are used to identify the shapes of typical local unemployment cycles and these typical unemployment cycles are shown to display distinctive spatial expressions.