Plant Closures, Unemployment, and Health: Danish Experiences from the Declining Ship-Building Industry

Abstract

On a world scale the ship-building industry has been in a crisis since the beginning of the 1970s. Especially the European part of the trade has been badly affected. This is partly owing to a declined demand for new ships and partly to a geographical restructuralization of the trade. In this way a rather large ship-building capacity has been built up in countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil. The lower costs in the developing countries, development of new technology (which does not make as heavy demands on the qualifications of the workers), together with the general decline in ship-building orders have contributed to large reductions of the labour force in the Western European ship-building yards.