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Introduction Much concern has been expressed in recent years about the long‐run trend of unemployment in the UK. Abstracting from short‐run cyclical swings, the trend has been upwards for at least the last 20 years. The available evidence suggests that this trend has become more pronounced over time, so that by the mid‐1980s the long‐run equilibrium rate of unemployment was around eleven per cent. If the notion of the “non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment” is accepted — as it now is by most economists — this means that demand management policies alone can never restore the persistently low levels of unemployment enjoyed during the post‐war period. The main aim of labour market policies must be to act directly on the non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) itself. Only thus can the long‐run trend be reversed.

By strategic planning of education I mean a consistent system of analyses, forecasts and planning work based on them, all aimed at establishing the purpose of general education and vocational training, the development of education in schools and outside them (adult education) as well as the number and composition of those participating in education. The system is primarily aimed at clarifying those problems of development which generally require a decision or a stand to be taken by government. This short study describes a possible methodological concept of the strategic planning of education, tested and for long applied in practice, together with the logical course and essential contents of the planning process. However, this is only a part of the complete system of the planning of education, which also comprises other planning tasks, e.g. the planning of the general objectives, methods and content of education or that of the technical, material and financial conditions of development and maintenance. These related, but at the same time separate, tasks as regards contents and methodology mostly require a different approach, also as regards scientific discipline; in fact, even different planning horizons, institutional and organisational frameworks. The present specific methodological study only indicates these tasks in one or two respects. Because its characteristics differ in part from other internationally acknowledged methodological concepts, e.g. the “manpower approach”, etc, this methodology will be called “socio‐economic” methodology.