Delivering job search services in rural labour markets: the role of ICT

national telephone helplines as important supplementary services throughout the
country, and as its primary means of contact with job seekers in many remote rural areas
(Employment Service 2000). The agency’s objective is to offer ICT-based provision that
can replicate the range and quality of counselling and information available to clients
receiving ‘face-to-face’ services at Jobcentre facilities in less remote labour markets.

The below analysis seeks to contribute to the debate on the provision of services
through the Internet and other forms of ICT, by examining the nature and extent of the
‘rural technology gap’ experienced by unemployed job seekers in two areas of Scotland.
The extent to which job seekers have access to the skills and technology required to fully
exploit ICT will largely determine the current effectiveness of policies that emphasise the
use of remote services in isolated rural communities. However, perhaps more
importantly, the formal and informal search methods deployed by job seekers, their
awareness of ICT as a means of networking and obtaining information, and the changing
balance between these factors in both remote and semi-rural areas, will be crucial in
determining whether the Internet is to play a more central role in delivering services for
the unemployed in the near future.

The study areas in context and sample information

The research reported in this paper was carried out between November 2000 and May 2001
in two areas of Scotland. The first study area was comprised of two contiguous travel-to-
work-areas (TTWAs) in the remote northern Highlands: Wick and Sutherland. Caithness
(the area in which Wick is located) and Sutherland are the most northerly counties of
mainland Britain, and are therefore particularly remote from major centres of economic
investment and industrial activity. The areas are also among the most sparsely populated in
Europe (14.8 persons per square km in Caithness and only 2.2 persons per square km in

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