The Workplace at the Millennium: New Geographies of Employment

Abstract

The workplace at the millennium: new geographies of employment Work, whatever its future, remains the central facet of existence for the vast majority of people around the globe. Scholarship to grasp the changing nature of work is thus fundamental to understanding the human condition. Yet the project to map contemporary geographies of employment is potentially a huge task. Our enquiries have to explore not only what is happening in the workplaceölooking at management practices, technological change, employee relations, and the likeöbut also what is happening beyond the world of the workplace. Understanding work requires knowledge of the wider economic, political, and cultural context in which employment takes place. The buoyancy of the economy is the key to determining the number and type of jobs that are available, but employment is also shaped by political regulations originating at international, national, and regional scales. The state (at every level) plays a key role, regulating the employment relation through legal measures such as controls over health and safety, employment rights (such as protection against unfair dismissal, rights to maternity and paternity leave, and limitations to working time), human rights (protection against race and sex discrimination), and rights to independent representation at work (trade union law). Moreover, government action over questions of training, education, childcare, unemployment, and management culture all impact on what employers and employees do in the workplace. Together, the state, employers, trade union organisations, and workers are all involved in crafting the ever-changing geography of employment. Taking a geographical perspective allows scholars to put employment in this wider context; focusing on the macrolevel environment as well as the microlevel dynamics of life at work. In addition, employment can be literally studied in place, in order to explore the role work plays in shaping community life, political expectations, and domestic relationships. Employment involves a relationship with an employer but it also invariably involves relationships with others, both those in the vicinity and those much further afield in other parts of the employing organisation. Studying the dynamics of employment thus also involves analysis of the interaction of social relations at different geographical scales, from the local to the global. Research into the geography of employment can tell us an enormous amount about economic, political, social, and cultural life. It is a field of enquiry that breaches the traditional boundaries of human geography, necessarily covering the changing nature of economic activity, the politics of employment regulation and relationships, the evolution of human societies and of their cultural forms. Strangely, however, it is a branch of human geographical enquiry with a relatively short history, coming to prominence only in the 1980s. At this time, many human geographers were trying to comprehend the nature of economic and social restructuring and...

Working social assemblages: Towards a new geography of social work

“…At the macroscale, it has broadly considered labour organisation, transformation, and relations (Hudson, ; Castree, Coe, Ward, & Samers, ; Peck, ; Hastings, ). At the mesoscales and microscales, it has considered various intricacies, interpersonal and performative aspects of work, workspaces, and working life (James, ; Wills, Cumbers, & Berndt, ; Worth, ). Here, interest has ranged from small to large businesses and has included sectors such as retail (Crew, Gregson, & Brooks, ; Everts, ; Gregson, Crewe, & Brooks, ), hospitality (Crang, ; Guyatt, ; McDowell, Batnitzky, & Dyer, ; McMorran, ), arts (Cameron, ; Watson & Ward, ), elite business (Cormode & Hughes, ; McDowell & Court, ), training, knowledge, and information (Cranston, ; Pykett & Enright, ; Hastings & MacKinnon, ), and hi‐tech and IT (James, ; Blumen, ; Pottie‐Sherman & Lynch, ; Reitman, ).…”

Considering national varieties in the temporary staffing industry and institutional change: Evidence from the UK and Germany

“…Furthermore, while the state can provide the legal foundation for the growth of the TSI, the actions of agencies actively expanding their remit in the labour market will also affect its form and role. Therefore, as Wills et al (2000: 1528) stated: ‘the state plays a key role, regulating the employment relation through legal measures’, but also that ‘the state, employers, trade union organisations, and workers are all involved in crafting the ever-changing geography of employment’.…”

Human geography and information studies

“…But we must also remember that such labor markets are not given, but have to be produced. Many human geographers take the dialectical view that “the spatial division of labour [is] a product of capitalist social relations,” a process that must be understood as unfolding historically (Wills, Cumbers, & Berndt, 2000, p. 1524):

Workers did not just “happen” to be in a place of work at a particular time. Rather, they were understood to be there—with a certain package of skills, experiences, and opinions—as a result of previous rounds of economic investment.

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