Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

Steel, the other staple industry of industrial Europe, suffered a similar fate. It was not that demand for steel had fallen so very dramatically—unlike coal, it could not so readily be replaced. But as more non-European countries entered the industrial ranks, competition increased, the price fell and the market for expensively produced European steel collapsed. Between 1974 and 1986 British steelworkers lost 166,000 jobs (though in the latter year the UK’s major manufacturer, the British Steel Corporation, made a profit for the first time in over a decade). Shipbuilding declined for similar reasons; motor car manufacturing and textiles likewise. Courtaulds, the UK’s leading textile and chemical combine, reduced its workforce by 50 percent in the years 1977–83.