Depressed industries

Visualization of narrower problems
Name(s): 
Industries in difficulty
Outmoded industries
Decline in industry competitiveness
Declining industrial sectors
Older industries
Ageing industrial sectors
Vulnerable industries
Nature 
Decline may stem primarily from the emergence of a cost-effective domestic substitute, in which case it is questionable whether any efforts should be made to modernize the outmoded industry or to protect it from foreign competition. In the case of trade-impacted industries making undifferentiated products in which costs alone determine sales, major declines inevitably resulted when the industries lost competitiveness. But the chronic adjustment problem for threatened industries is not a failure to move resources out of declining industries but rather that of adjustment within sectors and firms.
Background 
There are two extreme views of the structural adjustment process. That typical of economists sees changes in comparative economic advantage as being permanent, suggesting that once competitiveness is lost it is rarely, if ever, regained. That typical of the political perspective assumes that government policies can restore almost any industry to competitiveness. In practice neither process is entirely applicable.
Broader 
Dim business future
Loss of capacity with age
Narrower 
Redundancy of workers
Declining local businesses
Excess production capacity
Inhibiting business outlook
Declining mining communities
Decline in capital investment in productive capacity
Aggravates 
Sectoral imbalances
Work-related injury [in 1 loop]
Underpayment for work [in 9 loops]
Structural unemployment [in 3 loops]
Small business failures
Excessive corporate debt [in 2 loops]
Economic risks of subcontractors
Poor industrial safety standards
Tariff barriers to international trade
Nationalization of domestic enterprises [in 3 loops]
Inequitable distribution of public subsidies [in 1 loop]
Excessive government intervention in the private sector [in 2 loops]
Aggravated by 
Obsolete industries
Unstable economic base
Declining international competitiveness
Faltering structural adjustment in the world economy
Inadequate relationship between transnational corporations and local industry
Inadequate adjustment assistance to industries and labour affected by export competition
Strategy(ies) 
Preventing occupational accidents
Protecting vulnerable industries
Reversing decline in industry competitiveness
Rejuvenating depressed industries
Value(s) 
Age
Competition
Decline
Depression
Difficulty
Outmoded
Vulnerability
Reference(s) 
International Labour Organization: Industries in Trouble
Type 
(D) Detailed problems