Women, Other “Fresh” Workers, and the New Manufacturing Workforce ofInterwar Britain

Structural, organizational, and technological changes in British industry during the interwar years led to a decline in skilled and physically demanding work, while there was a dramatic expansion in unskilled and semiskilled employment. Previous authors have noted that the new un/semiskilled jobs were generally filled by “fresh” workers recruited from outside the core manufacturing workforce, though there is considerable disagreement regarding the composition of this new workforce. This paper examines labour recruitment patterns and strategies using national data and case studies of eight rapidly expanding industrial centres. The new industrial workforce is shown to have been recruited from a “reserve army” of workers with the common features of relative cheapness, flexibility, and weak unionization. These included women, juveniles, local workers in poorly paid nonindustrial sectors, such as agriculture, and (where these other categories were in short supply) relatively young long-distance internal migrants from declining industrial areas

Agriculture · Business · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Flexibility (engineering · Geography · Labour economics · Management · Work (physics · Workforce · Engineering · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Political and Economic history of UK and US

• Running out of time

  Open Access•Peter Håkansson, Peter Gladoić Håkansson et al.•Scandinavian Economic History…•2023

  Incluir item

• Breadwinners and Dependants

  Open Access•Selina Todd•International Review of Social…•2007

  Incluir item

• Moving workers with the work

  Open Access•Mike Raco•Geoforum•2005

  Incluir item

• Boisterous Workers

  Selina Todd•Labour History Review•2003

  Incluir item

• Women, Other “Fresh” Workers, and the New Manufacturing Workforce ofInterwar Britain

  Open Access•Peter Scott•International Review of Social…•2000

  Incluir item

• Countering prejudice and discrimination

  Open Access•Ivana Vesic•Muzikologija•2025

  Incluir item

• Patterns and determinants of manufacturing plant location in interwar London

  Open Access•Peter Scott, Peter Walsh•The Economic History Review•2004

  Incluir item

• Occupational Segregation

  Open Access•Matt L Huffman•Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of…•2015

  Incluir item

• The Emergence of Shop Steward Organization and Job Control in the British Car Industry

  Jonathan Zeitlin•History Workshop Journal•1980

  Incluir item

• London's Urban Transition 1851-19511

  Open Access•Dov Friedlander•Urban Studies•1974

  Incluir item

• Women, Other “Fresh” Workers, and the New Manufacturing Workforce ofInterwar Britain

  Open Access•Peter Scott•International Review of Social…•2000

  Incluir item

• The Development of the British Economy, 1914-1950

  Walter M Stern, Sidney Pollard•Economica•1962

  Incluir item

• Regional Wage Variations in Britain 1850-1914

  John Saville, E H Hunt•The Economic Journal•1974

  Incluir item

• American Investment in British Manufacturing Industry

  Richard Evely, John H Dunning•The Economic Journal•1959

  Incluir item

• Some Notes on Female Wage Labour in Capitalist Production

  Open Access•Veronica Beechey•Capital & Class•1977

  Incluir item