The Location of Employment in High-technology Manufacturing in Great Britain

Abstract

The location of employment in high-technology manufacturing in Great Britain in 1984 is analysed using a series of spatial regression models. These show that the distribution of employment explains a large part of the high-technology manufacturing employment distribution, indicating that the forces acting on high-technology location are similar to those acting on all industries. In addition, it is shown that the number of industrial establishments that migrated from each county in the previous decade is significantly positively associated with the location of high-technology manufacturing. This is interpreted as a signal that spatial variations in the level of positive feedback were also responsible for employment variations. In addition, the South West region has a higher level of employment than suggested by the above factors, and Yorkshire and Humberside and the Intermediate Areas have lower employment levels. There are four significant outliers from the final regression. An exploratory analysis suggests that three of these counties deviate because of sectoral effects involving a few high-technology subsectors, rather than being the result of local economic factors operating across the range of high-technology subsectors. London is a special case with less than the predicted level of high-technology employment, though the metropolis remained the country's major concentration of high-technology jobs.