 What is a manufacturing job?Felix Ritchie (),
Andrew D. Thomas and
Richard Welpton
Working Papers from Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol Abstract: Policy initiatives in the UK targeting manufacturing industries have for a number of years been driven by a perceived importance of this sector to the economy. In order to target such policies, it is important to establish the true size of this sector and to accurately quantify its decline. This, as well as many other economic analyses, relies upon classification of businesses into exclusive industrial categories. This paper considers whether standard methods of enterprise classification may mask the numbers and true activity of workers who are employed by so-called ‘manufacturers’. Calculating the extent of this effect, we estimate that the number of manufacturing jobs ‘hidden’ within the service sector is more than offset by service sector jobs hidden within manufacturing. This is important for government policies which target manufacturing jobs. We therefore consider whether protecting ‘manufacturing’ is a meaningful policy target. This analysis uses data from the UK official statistics system. However, given the methodological similarity across countries, particularly in the EU, the findings here are relevant for policy analysis in many countries. Date: 2012-01-18 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwe:wpaper:20121218 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol Contact information at EDIRC. |
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