Manpower Training in the United Kingdom: Some Aspects of the Government's Role

Abstract

The post‐war period has been one of unparallelled growth and stability in most western economies. One consequence of this performance has been increasing governmental concern with the dual problems of structural unemployment and skilled labour shortages. The concensus that both of these problems can be left to the workings of the market system has gradually been superseded by direct and indirect government involvement in the training and re‐training of the work force. Moreover, until recently this direct involvement in the United Kingdom appeared to be of small quantitative importance. The number completing government training schemes in 1971 was only 18,402. Recent plans suggest a target of 100,000 as soon as possible. A further indication of the expansion of government sponsored vocational training can be gauged from the expansion of the annual output of the Government Training Centres (now called Skillcentres) from 3,336 trained in 1962 to 12,623 in 1971 with a projected 30,000 output by 1978.

Citation

Adnett, N.J. (1977), "Manpower Training in the United Kingdom: Some Aspects of the Government's Role", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 120-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb013810