ABSTRACT
In Western capitalist economies during the 1980s, major employers have commonly reacted to world recession by shedding labour on a large scale. In most years since the depression of the early 1930s, job losses in these proportions were largely unknown except perhaps in the coal-mining industry. Mass-redundancy was viewed by many European governments as one aspect of the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ which should be avoided if at all possible. This is not the prevailing ideology in the 1980s. Mass-redundancy programmes became so numerous that one could almost regard them as the accepted political fashion of the day. Indeed, such programmes came to be viewed by many national governments as an appropriate and justifiable response to recession conditions, action which in the long term, it is hoped, will increase national industrial competitiveness and speed the transition towards an ideal ‘post-industrial’ society.
