Labour and the Location of Mobile Industry: Observations from the Instruments Industry

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Abstract
There has been a tendency in certain recent studies of industrial location to use aggregated samples which draw together, and consider similarly, wide-ranging types of industrial production. With regard to labour considerations in mobile firms, interest has frequently gravitated towards an analysis of the variation in managerial competence to solve labour difficulties and has largely ignored the reality that the extent of the labour problem will vary between firms. This paper, with the aid of empirical data from the scientific and industrial instruments and systems industry, will argue that the product and process technologies of individual industries dictate the complexity of the labour requirement of firms. It is concluded that the effect of labour requirements on mobile industrial firms can only be realistically examined in studies of the labour problems of mobile industry if production technology, and its influence on the subsequent labour requirement, is acknowledged and included as a key variable.

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