Aspects of the impact of major employment loss: the case of the Singer Company, Clydebank

The Singer Company recently announced proposals for the future development
of its Clydebank plant which would have resulted in 2,850 job losses over the four-year period to 1982. In the event the Company was persuaded to adopt a modified version of an alternative strategy proposed by the Singer unions and the job losses are now expected to be 2,350 over the four years This paper traces out in some detail the main economic consequences of job losses on this scale, notably for the Clydebank Local Economy, but also more generally for the Strathclyde Region and the UK economy. The particular concern of the paper is to explore the implications for impact assessment of some important characteristics of local labour markets and this is done within the context of the types and numbers of Singer job losses and the pattern of those losses. Although a case study, it is hoped the analysis will be of more general applicability for the
costing of major employment losses.