ABSTRACT
If workpeople out of a job were completely ignorant about available vacancies, their only recourse would be to a perfectly haphazard and unguided search for work. They could do nothing but wander aimlessly round to the firms that have not, as well as to those that have, vacancies, engaging themselves in a weary “tramp from one firm to another, in the attempt to discover, by actual application to one after another, which of them wants another hand". Each man, as he becomes unemployed, writes his name in the vacant book at the local branch office or meeting-place. The Employment Exchanges act as powerful informing agencies. They extend the inquiry work carried on by trade unions, and “enable the workman to ascertain, by calling at an office in his own neighbourhood, what enquiries have been made for his own kind of labour all over London".
