Spatial turns of manufacturing since 1970

Abstract

In this article, the geographical transformation of the Finnish manufacturing sector since the 1970s is analysed. Changes in manufacturing employment by municipalities are used as central indicators of the transformation. The urban–rural shift, deindustralisation, and emergence of the new economy have all occurred during the last three decades.

A trend surface analysis indicates that manufacturing employment increased all over the country in the 1970s. The growth was higher the more northern and eastern the municipality’s location. This pattern was conformable to the goals of the Finnish regional policy of the 1970s. Deindustrialisation plagued the economy from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, and its negative labour force impacts were focused especially on the southern mature industrial cities. The industrial policy of the 1980s was without much result. Finally, the crisis of the early 1990s ruined a considerable part of industrial performance everywhere in the country. The era of telecommunications-driven economic growth in the 1990s led to the geographical pattern of growing employment in few urban areas and some localities adjacent to cities. The long, vigorous growth period (up to the year 2001), comparable with the growth of the late 1960s and early 1970s, diffused to rural municipalities, but the geographical pattern of this boom was oriented more towards the west and south than in the 1970s.