The Unemployment Map Weathers the Crisis

We study the effects of the crisis on the duration of unemployment at different spatial scales, namely the city of Lyon, the urban community, and the urban area of the entire region. Using the exhaustive job center files, we assess the probabilities of leaving unemployment for each of these areas at the town level for two cohorts of job seekers (2004 and 2009 entrants). We show that there has been neither an enlargement in spatial fractures nor territorial convergence. The crisis has generally left intact the strong territorial inequalities in access to employment, leaving the need for a territorial cohesion policy unchanged. JEL: C41, J64, R1