Introduction

For the last two or three decades there are substantial changes in the world labour market and the impact of these changes are remarkable. This paper is going to talk about the issue of how the UK labour market changes in the last two decades and how these changes have had an impact on the HR strategies. The paper deals with these points as follows. First, concerning with definition, theory and types of the labour market; second, more expressly with the UK labour market changes since the 1980s and its nature and source of these changes; and third, evaluate these changes implications for employment relationship and HR strategies and practices.

Labour Market
Definition and Main Theories
Labour market is a kind of market which production is labour. It is the same as other kind market that follow the supply and demand curve. It is an institution that sold and bought labour as well as a product in a supermarket, which also matches the demand supply relation (Wilton, 2010). In a word, the labour market is a place that employee supply workforces while demand job positions and employer supply job positions while demand workforces. It is a place of competitive which use wages as the core of the competition. The supply and demand relation determines the wages.

Basic Types
There are two main types of the labour market, which are internal labour market and external labour market. Internal labour market is the type that mostly dealing with the existing employees and it is an inside selection process, while the external labour market select employees outside the origin organization. Wilton (2010, p. 91) states that internal labour market refer to exists within a single organization and represents its internal supply or stock of labour. Whilst the external labour market demand the external supply. Internal labour market generally concerned about job training, vocation development, promotion and transfer. External labour market is more close to diversity of the labour. Nolan and Slater (nd cited in Edwards, 2003) agree that branches, corporations and enterprises mainly supply and demand the external labour market, while levels, statutes and traditions control the internal labour market.

UK Labour Market Changes Since 1980s

Since the 1980s there has been significant changes in the UK labour market. These changes mainly due to the de industrialization of economies, changes in the policies of the labour market and employers demand of the labour (Beardwell and Claydon, 2010). Evidently the UK labour market is influenced by a series of reasons. First, the structure of the economy has been definitely changed. Technology changes such as automatic machines developed and put in use in many fields has dramatically due to the shift from manufacturing sector to service sector. As Burchill (2008) agrees that obvious and recognizable changes have effected in the past three decades in the UK industrial structure and the overall economic environment. Furthermore, globalization such as employing of oversea workers also changes the labour market. Nolan and Slater (nd cited in Edwards, 2003) state that the main ongoing levers of change in work and occupation relations are the globalization. Last but not least, employers attitude toward work and government policies towards labour market are also major sources of the labour market change. Such as more female workers decide to work; more workers decide to retire early even the high divorce rates promote the labour market changing. Both these factors lead to the part-time working, working time flexibility, more health or childcare assistance. Furthermore, the government try to help decrease the high unemployment rate and those who have difficulty to work or search jobs.

Affect of Labour Market Changes

There is no doubt that above labour market changes have taken distinct implications for both the employment relationship and human resource strategies. For the employment relationship, it definitely decreases the amount and strength of the unions. Also for management strategies, it extremely diversity the workforce.

Union Decline
De industrialization leads to less full time manufacturing jobs and the increase of the service sector causes unions decline. Service sectors expansion

increased the part time work, women employees and many other form of flexible labour demand, which definitely lead to the weakness of the union. Flexible labours commonly equal to disorganized worker that dramatically rise the difficulty to builds unions and likewise decline the existing unions. It can be seen from the WERS surveys that a range of unions has begin loss their influence over the past two decades although their still remains recognition (Brown et al., 2000 cited in Oxenbridge and Brown, 2004). With the decline of unions the employees voice is weaker than ever. Increasing use of part-time employees make the unions even harder to survive. Employees nowadays mostly arrangement their voice directly, and it is always useless. Alternately, it also makes the labour market more flexible. Nolan and Slater (nd, cited in Edwards, 2003) suggest that the changing status of unemployment arise to back up the supporters of who count to improve labour market flexibility. Labour market flexibility mainly due to the changing economy environment, changes of government policy and the changing social environment. Globalization change the world economy into a global product market, with the increased technology changes employment patterns become increasingly flexible. Governments desire of brings down unemployment and makes the economy growth in a long-term. Social attitudes are also main sources of labour market flexibility, more women come out to find a job, more workers tend to early retirement and more employees try to balance the work and life better.

Work-Life Balance
As mentioned above, work-life balance becomes increasingly influential in recent years, which is one of the most important impacts of UK labour market changes. It is hard to define the idea of the work-life balance. Noon and Blyton (2007, cited in Beardwell and Claydon, 2010) suggest that work-life balance means that one person can handle their working times and times without working and transfer from one to the other easily. It is obvious that the core of the problem is the balance. The causes of work-life balance are in varied forms. First, it is the employers demand more than the employees. Taylor (2008) agrees that work-life balance in many conditions is tending to meet the functioning need of management instead of the selections of workers. As for the part-time jobs, both meet the employer and employees demand. Employers need more workers to do some job all day long, while employees may have their own stuff to handle so they also find the convenience of part-time work.

Government policy is another important cause. As the Working Time Regulations came out in 1998, legally formulated the maximum of working hours per week is 48 hours. This legal provision normally limits the maximum of the working hours a week, which legally make the work-life balance more convenient. Social attitudes are also one major reason. It used to be no doubt that men were working to support the family while women mainly in charge of take care of the family, but it is totally different now (Taylor, 2008). More women come out to find a job, not only for earning the bread but also for realize their own self-worth. Unfortunately, housework and child still need to take into account. So that flexible working becomes popular. Additionally, employees pay more attention to the health service that employers provide. According to Beardwell and Claydon (2010) managers have the responsibility to give assistance to workers balance their work and life for a probable powerful motivation. But the organizations comments to work-life balance are complicated. It is unsure that whether employees or employers should in charge of balance employees working times and non-working times. Although this maybe a domination when compete in the labour market, it still some kind decrease the organizations benefits.

Conclusion
It has been shown that, UK labour market dramatically changed over the past three decades. There has been no doubt that service sector increased while manufacturing sector decreased, and this seems to be regarded as one major changes. Also globalization and technology improved have had an influence on the UK labour market. Still, social attitude towards work changed a lot additionally. Consequently, it can be suggest that above changes generally led to the flexible of the labour market, such as part-time work, supply quality health care, provide childcare assistance and many other forms. Furthermore, work-life balance strategy became influential as a result of the changes.

Approximate words: 1400

Bibliography
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