Post-War Unemployment in Britain: Some Basic Considerations

Abstract

IN the post-war period, geographers have become increasingly concerned with problems of regional development. In particular, there has been much study of the policies for the location of industry adopted by successive Governments. These policies have been operated by the Board of Trade on Ministry of Labour evidence, and their effects on local and regional employment have proved a fruitful field of geographical research. They have involved consideration of industrial structures and of the types of industry that have moved to areas of labour surplus. It may well be that it is not in the long-term national interest to pursue a policy of full employment in each area of Britain and that, in some places, it is most appropriate to assist labour mobility. Nevertheless, the relief of unemployment has been the prime motivation for these policies and areal differences in unemployment rate have been the key to regional development in post-war Britain. However, regional figures mask considerable local variations and the existence of pockets of unemployment has been responsible for Government intervention in the location of industry to an increasing extent since the war, with various Acts to control and direct development and, more recently, with the publication of regional studies and the setting up of regional economic planning councils. Yet unemployment itself remains a subject largely neglected by geographers. It is a very complex phenomenon, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and unemployment rate is only one of its facets. Other aspects of unemployment, especially the economic characteristics of the unemployed, have an areal expression and must be considered in any study of local and regional problems of labour surplus. It is the purpose of this paper to outline, in the context of post-war Britain, some of the basic facets of the unemployment problem. After a consideration of unemployment in the general context of employment and employment policy, its character, causes and consequences are discussed. Frequent reference is made to conditions on Merseyside, but it must be stressed at the outset that the Merseyside area may well be atypical and that unemployment in other regions may be of a very different character. It is in the study of the character of unemployment in individual areas, and of its differences between them, that the geographer has an important, although little-played, role in the field of regional economic and social development. Areal differences in unemployment occur because regional or local economies have become out of step with current trends of economic growth, owing to dependence on forms of employment that no longer hold their place in the national economy because of changing demands for goods and services. In other words, the employment structure has become anachronistic. This concept of employment structure is most important, and some definition is necessary. It is taken here to be the product of the nature and extent of the demand for labour, created by productive and service activity, and the degree to which this demand is fulfilled. It is dynamic, subject to both longand short-term fluctuations, which inevitably cause some