Job creation and job destruction in Great Britain in the 1980s

This paper characterizes the processes of job creation and job destruction (JC&D) in Britain, and provides more ''stylized facts'' to hold up against models of JC&D. The analysis is based on data from the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. (WIRS) surveys of 1980, 1984 and 1990 each of which are representative cross-sections of approximately 2000 continuing British establishments. They cover all sectors (excluding agriculture and mining), public and private, manufacturing and the correspondingly substantial JC&S rates. We show that both JC&D are extremely concentrated : about 50% of each of these is accounted for by just 4% of continuing establishments.