ABSTRACT
Full employment – defined in 1944 as 'high and stable levels of employment' – was a reality for the twenty years after the Second World War. But rising unemployment in the 1970s was followed in the 1980s by unemployment rising to above three million, beyond its peak in the 1930s. Some believe that full employment can be restored only by a return to macroeconomic fine tuning. If we start with that famous 1944 White Paper, we see that the government of the time was clear that if full employment was to be sustained all these conditions – stability, employability, productivity and responsibility – had to be in place. As important for future generations, was the White Paper's recognition that macro-economic action was a necessary but not sufficient condition for full employment and that policies for stability had to be accompanied by policies for employability, productivity and responsibility, not least in pay.
