In January 1986, the Employment and Training Administration sponsored a special study designed to answer some of the questions about displaced workers. The principal findings of the survey included the following: a total of 10.8 million workers 20 years of age and over lost jobs because of plant closings or employment cut-backs over the January…

The most significant factors affecting the labor market during the 1980s were the United States' loss of competitiveness in the world marketplace, continued shifts in production from goods to services, changes in the skill requirements of many jobs, and demographic shifts in the population. During the next decade, incompatibility between the type…