A Study On Labour Distribution Policy In Britain During World War â…¡ (1939-1945)

Labor force is an indispensable precious resource in wartime.The purpose of this paper is to examine some significant characteristics of British human resource allocation experience during World War Ⅱ.The manpower allocation in the war economy mainly includes three tasks.First,conscription is required;Secondly,a balance must be found between the existing human resources;Third,the labor force in the industry must be distributed among the industries according to the mode of production determined by the military and economic needs,and the necessary changes in the mode of production must be completed in the shortest possible time.Therefore,it is necessary to adopt some kind of resource control technology so as to be able to quickly transfer from one production mode to another when necessary.The expansion of labor force is closely related to the third task,labor force distribution.If there are available "resource pools" of unused labour,the need for labour and industrial expansion can be met from these resource pools.If such a pool of resources does not exist,or if the demand for more labour still exists once labour is absorbed,then the problem becomes one of allocation.This paper will focus on the third task of the manpower positioning mechanism,namely,the distribution of labor among industries.Chapter one discusses the general situation and policies of the British labor force in the 1930 s.Facing the expansion of the German fascist forces,Britain began to reassess the possibility of facing the war threat,and abandoned the so-called "Ten-Year Principle" and decided to rearm to cope with the unstable war factors.However,there was a dispute over the speed and scale of the rearmament.Influenced by Britain’s liberal tradition and appeasement policy’s foreign policy,the country generally overestimated the war situation,which led to the low recruitment efficiency in Britain and the shortage of labor in the war industry.However,the enactment of the Employment Control Act means that the government has begun to purposefully intervene in the allocation of labor in the market.The second chapter discusses in detail the distribution of labor force in various fields of production and service during the war,covering the four fields of army,industry,agriculture and civil defense.After the outbreak of World War Ⅱ,Britain implemented a strict rationing system in the economic field.The government appointed ernest bevin as the labor minister and led the formulation of a more reasonable manpower budget plan to meet the needs of the war.This incident was generally regarded as a turning point in the redistribution of British wartime labor force.This chapter focuses on the use of female labor and prisoners of war in the government’s manpower allocation,and the army demobilization policy formulated at the end of the war.The third chapter analyzes the characteristics of the labor distribution policy and the labor welfare guarantee.There are many contradictions in Britain’s wartime labor distribution policy.Although the labor unions actively cooperate with the government to make full efforts in production,factors such as labor conflicts and the deterioration of the working environment still lead to small-scale strike movements.Although Bevan-led labor distribution policy emphasizes respect for the individual,there have also been incidents of "Bevan Boys" with the color of coercion.However,the purpose of labor force distribution in wartime is not to strictly control the person,but to maximize the value of labor force through flexible and effective policies under the leadership of the government.In order to improve the labor efficiency,the government also issued many welfare policies,which laid the foundation for the post-war welfare state construction.The fourth chapter analyzes the impact of the labor distribution policy,focusing on the promotion of the Labor Party’s post-war reconstruction policy and the impact on the employment structure.In the end,it reflects on the problems existing in the policy,such as the waste of human resources and discrimination against women in various industries.The positive and negative aspects reveal the learning value embodied in the fact that Britain can effectively organize manpower in a very short period of time.Under extremely difficult circumstances,the whole nation is united to resist foreign enemies and offer lessons to other countries.