Ready, steady…?

IF INDUSTRY HAS LOST its paunch in terms of surplus labour, it has not yet started doing its press‐ups. The streamlining of companies that has gone on in past months has been truly amazing. They have lost so much ‘fat’—a word which, with apologies to the unions, is not intended to be derogatory to workers—but have not geared up with investment muscle to move forward again. If British firms come up against too many lithe athletes in the Common Market some are liable to be left way behind.