REGIONAL PRODUCTIVITY DYNAMICS OF MANUFACTURING IN GREECE

Although employment change captures only one dimension of spatially un even industrial growth, geographers have often tended to treat it as a lmost the exclusive indicator of regional performance. As a result, it is not infrequently the case that this more or less sole focus on emp loyment, although valuable in itself, produces an incomplete and somet imes somewhat distorted view of spatial economic change. The case of r egional manufacturing restructuring in Greece during the 1970s and 198 0s provides an example of the problems that over-concentration on empl oyment can involve. By jointly examining the evolution of employment t ogether with output, and the consequent labour productivity in the reg ions of Greece, the existence of two distinct geographies of uneven in dustrial expansion becomes apparent. The prefectures gaining most in t erms of employment are not necessarily those gaining most in output. A lthough locally focused case-studies are probably what is required for a full understanding of the different facets of regional accumulation processes, the parallel examination of these three parameters provide s a general idea of the possible different spatial outcomes of manufac turing expansion. It is this latter focus that is the purpose of this article.