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For those unfortunate enough to experience it, long-term unemployment - now, as in the 1930s - is a tragedy. And, for society as a whole, there is the danger that the productive capacity of a significant portion of the labour force will be impaired.

The 1930s had been a time of tremendous economic distress. And the unemployment rate was enormously high by any historic standard.

Why was there so much work-sharing in the 1930s? One reason is that government pushed for it. In his memoirs, President Herbert Hoover estimated that as many as two million workers avoided unemployment as a result of his efforts to promote work-sharing.

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

In the 1960s, and stretching back to the 1930s, it was felt by many economists that easy money is a reliable way to increase employment.

There were a lot of manufacturing jobs lost over a long period of time and particularly after - during the Great Recession. We've had some recovery in manufacturing employment as the economy's recovered.

The longer people are unemployed, the less employable they become. Skills become rusty; managers look more suspiciously at someone who has been out of work for years than a candidate already employed.

If you've got unemployment, low pay, that was just too bad. But that was the system. That was the sort of economy and philosophy against which I was fighting in the 1930s.

You couldn't beg, borrow, or steal a job in 1931, 1932... it was really tough.

When you have a large amount of the workforce being laid off, some of them have no other choice but to go out there and invent something.