Post War Jobs

This investigation into the efforts by politicians and businessmen to forestall an unemployment crisis after the war is given a human face by the film’s dramatised sequences, showing the individual experiences of of a cross-section of the American workforce, from returning veterans to worried factory workers. The film ends on a positive note: the demand for consumer goods after the war meant that, with careful planning, businesses could expand and take on new workers.

Beginning with a rather downbeat estimation of potentially 12 million jobless Americans after the war, this March of Time issue’s final, positive prediction, turned out to be the correct one. With careful planning, the American economy managed to shift from a war footing to cater for the demands of peacetime, leading to a period of unprecedented prosperity for the country. This prosperity, as the issue explains, was built on the provision of consumer goods and services, for which there was an immense demand. This issue tantalised its audience with the promise of television sets, vacuum cleaners and refrigerators, all of which would become part of almost every American home over the next fifteen years.