Manpower Services Commission Available to Purchase

The services now provided through the MSC have a long history. Employment exchanges started in 1909, and Government Training Centres (now called Skill‐centres) in 1925. For much of their life these services have been seen as mainly social in purpose, to alleviate the hardships of unemployment. Employment exchanges in particular came to be associated in the mind of the public more with the payment of unemployment benefits than with job placement. Only in the last decade or so has it been seen that effective working of the labour market brings economic as well as social benefits.