ABSTRACT
The labour market, on which most of us sell our labour, comes at the crossroads between problems of the efficiency of our economy and those of obtaining a fair distribution of jobs and incomes, and so should be one of the prime concerns of the next Labour government. In some economists have been forecasting dramatic increases in the level of unemployment because of the effect of the ‘microprocessor revolution’ and because of the continued decline of Britain’s competitiveness on world markets. To summarise so far, Britain faces urgent problems with the advent of the era of rapid technical change heralded by the microprocessor. A key part of any strategy for adaptation to technical change must be the reform of our system of industrial training and an end to the separation of ‘low-status’ technical vocational training from the more ‘high-status’ general education provided in schools and universities.
