ABSTRACT
The hard core in heavy industry had substantially diminished, work patterns had changed with the enormous growth of part-time employment and there was a much more even balance between males and females. Unemployment, which had been at almost insignificant levels in the late 1940s, re-emerged in the 1970s and since 1979 has been at levels which compare with the interwar period. An explanation of the main trends in the labour market may lie in the theories of the internal labour market and segmentation between primary and secondary labour markets. Firms with an internal labour market recruit their workers into a limited number of entry jobs and rely upon training and promotion to fill the majority of higher-level positions which tend to be arranged into something like a promotional hierarchy. The real market factors which affect the equilibrium rate of unemployment arise from two main sources: the benefit system and wage bargaining arrangements.
