The Labour Exchange
Juan Antonio Toledo and José Blasco
Background
The Labour Exchange was a former name for employment office in Britain.
From 1939, the department was renamed the Ministry of Labour and National Service, reflecting new duties under the National Service (Armed Forces). It allocated people to work between the armed forces, civil defence and industry.
From 1941, one Deputy Secretary for the Ministry controlled peacetime work, and another one coordinated work and training and labour supply.
In April 1945, functions relating to unemployment insurance and assistance were transferred to the Ministry of National Insurance, but the Ministry of Labour retained responsibility for employment exchanges.
In June 1945, the Board of Trade was handed responsibility for industrial policy, except that concerning labour power. At the end of the War, the National Service Department was wound up and its functions passed to the Military Recruitment Department.
Finally, in 1959, the department became the Ministry of Labour and later, in 1970, it was renamed again as the Department for Employment
World War II
This is a photo where we can see the Ministry of Labour and National Service office during WWII
During WWII, this brought about major changes for women in the services. At first only childless widows and single women between the ages of 20 and 30 years old were called up, but later the age limit was expanded to 19 and 43.
Before a woman got the job, she had to pass an interview and also a medical test. After passing the test, she received a letter informing her whether she had been accepted or not. If the answer was positive, she was given her gears for the position held and she was provided with billet and means of transport for the place of destination.
The gear was the equipment and uniform that you got for a job. For example, if you got a job in the ATS, it was khaki with a little porridge hat. Billet was the place where you lived. If you were working in The Land Army, you usually lived in the farm where you worked.
Women could get a job at The women`s Timber corps, the ATS, the WAAF, the Land army, etc. For instance, Prim got a job in The Women’s Timber corps, it is mentioned in Pam`s book on page 9. She was stationed in an old army camp in three huts. There were twelve women in each hut, with fires at each end and nice beds, toilets and showers. The food was fantastic over there. A hut is a small or humble dwelling construction.
Once installed in their jobs they could get help from the welfare office. In some cases, they couldn`t stand the work or the conditions or their billet and were relocated to new jobs. From our point of view, the Labour exchange had a very difficult coordination job, but despite de novelty of the situation they coped extremely well. They learnt a lot from World War I, where soldiers and workers had been volunteers.
Women in the Second World War took on many different roles, including as combatants and workers on the home front. The Second World War involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale; the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable, although the particular roles varied from country to country. Millions of women of various ages died as a result of the war.
Here we can find 3 flyers issued by the goverment where they urged the women to work as volunteers:
FORUM
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