Emploi public et logiques territoriales aux marges d'un espace métropolisé / Employment and territorial logics on the fringes of a metropolitan space

ABSTRACT Public sector employment in medium-sized towns (whether they lie within the sphere of influence of a metropolitan area or on its margins, as in the case of Lyon) are likely to experience changes determined by the development of the towns and by the appearance of a new paradigm regulating salaries. These changes are taking place in association with the emergence of a new economic processes. Analysis of the dynamics of the spatial characteristics of employment in the civil service and in state employment in hospitals emphasises two main trends relating to various factors. In the first place it sems that the growth of public sector employment in urban areas depends more on the local journey-to-work areas than on administrative hierarchies. It is only when using general quantitative criteria such as the distribution of civil service employment that a functional division based on urban areas emerges ; more detailed analysis reveals a different classification. Secondly, a general tendency is apparent in the public sector, which is also a feature of the economy as a whole, namely a structural increase in the proportion of qualified employment as well as in the number of insecure jobs - this insecurity anses from an increase in jobs without permanent status and/or part-time jobs. However, contrary to what an initial analysis might suggest, this general tendency only partially reduces the specificities of the urban areas which feature in the study.Current spatial restructuring, resulting from the joint effects of globalisation and metropolitan sevelopment, still allows medium-sized towns, and their networks of smaller, local towns, to play a role of economic development when they are located on the fringes of a large metropolitan region (in this case the Greater Lyon region), in particular due to the importance of public sector employment. The maintenance of such jobs appears to be a last chance to avoid economic stagnation and the marginalisation of such territories. Simultaneously, and especially in the hearth services, where a new organisation of employment is taking place, state sector jobs no longer seem able to play their role as a means of social integration. Conversely, such employment illustrates the ambiguous role that medium-sized towns currently play in socio- spatial organisation.Commerçon Nicole. Emploi public et logiques territoriales aux marges d'un espace métropolisé / Employment and territorial logics on the fringes of a metropolitan space. In: Revue de géographie de Lyon, vol. 74, n°2, 1999. Emploi public et dynamiques urbaines. pp. 141-151