LABOUR TURNOVER IN UK MANUFACTURING 1949–86

Introduction The level of turnover in UK manufacturing, measured as the percentage of both leavers and starters over a four‐week period, was first collected in August 1948. Since this date, the level of quits and accessions has been published for Minimum List Headings (MLHs) and all manufacturing on a quarterly basis. This has proved to be a valuable data source for cross‐section analysis but, perhaps surprisingly, it does not appear to have been fully exploited for time‐series analysis. For example, it was used by Curran (1981) for an inter‐industry study of male turnover across 89 MLHs in 1972. Shorey (1980) analyses male quitting in 1968 across 49 MLHs, and extends this to cover both male and female turnover in Shorey (1983). A subsequent article in this journal will consider male and female quitting in 1968, but will present an improved model of turnover which is estimated across all 104 MLHs.