CHANGES IN UK LABOUR MARKET

Changes in UK Labour Market



Changes in UK Labour Market

Introduction

The main purpose of this paper is to make an analysis, on the ways in which the UK labour market has changed over the past 20 years, and the challenges faced by the HR managers due to these changes. Over the past two decades, the UK economy observed a fierce decrease in the rate of unionized workers related to the total of workers in the economy. In the late 70's, rate of unionized workers was 30% in the U.K. while in 2000, it was only 14% (Aghion, 2008, p. 45). Regarding the UK, this rate was above 55% and dropped to below 30% in the same period (Fortin, 2006, p. 240).

Discussion

U.K labour market has changed tremendously during the last 20 years. The UK offers ample employment opportunities. Market is very flexible and with an unemployment rate below 6% in comparison with other EU countries. Most jobs are found in southeast England, while in the north of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, there is more unemployment. If you want a professional-level employment or unpaid is essential to have a good level of English. The degree may also be important but not essential and in most cases, lack of title, taking into accounts the experience. If you are studying or learning English and looking for a job that will help cover your expenses, it will be very hard to find (Castells, 2006b, p. 201). In the UK, the labour market is very flexible and relatively easy to find temporary or part time work, even if your English is not good, but do not expect to win the gold and eat. The main change has observed in terms of labour unionization. One of the changes relates this de-unionization to changes in the legal and political system. These changes would create an economic environment more hostile to union activities. Key facts related to this are the 1981 air-traffic controller strike, the Reagan's National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) appointments in 1983 for the UK, and the Thatcher government in the UK.

Overall, in the past twenty years, the labour market in UK had seemingly moved toward a situation of unbalance and greater economic inequality in terms of wage, unemployment, and occupation imbalance, when the economy began shifting from traditional labour-intensive manufacturing to information-intensive industries. This situation apparently conforms to the observations of some information economy or political economy scholars describing the growth of economic informatization (Bernard, 2007, p. 3). As for the development processes of the information economy, UK, apparently also diverges from the experience of developed countries. As Katz (1988) pointed out, the evolution of developed countries' informatization and information economy was often based on market logic, yet the development of informatization in developing countries was very often led by political power for not only economic concerns but also some time for political or social purposes. This study determined that, foreign capital, the state, and the domestic capital were by turns the ...