ABSTRACT
In view of gaps in the primary sources, it is not surprising that unemployment among German industrial workers between 1873 and 1913 has been treated in a sketchy and inconsistent manner by historians. Underemployment and reduced hours were commonly implemented techniques which enabled employers to get through slack periods without relinquishing the services of skilled employees whose output would be in demand once economic conditions improved. This chapter shows a more satisfactory approach to existing quantitative data that is to use it in analyzing variegated patterns of unemployment both with respect to the individuals directly affected and the broad contours of a changing economy. It demonstrates with statistical analysis that the reaction to unemployment was conditioned by its distribution, duration, timing, predictability, risk and recurrence. This chapter presents a methodology for dealing with unemployment statistics in a more comprehensive manner than has yet emerged from the competitive historiographical traditions of East and West Germany.
