During the New Deal, over three million unemployed young men were taken out of their homes and placed for six months into more than 2600 work camps managed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.Unemployment in the United Kingdom fell later in the 1930s as the Depression eased, and it remained low (in single figures) after World War II. Fredrick Mills found that in the US, 51% of the decline in work hours was due to the fall in production and 49% was from increased productivity.By 1972, unemployment in the United Kingdom had crept back up above 1,000,000, and it was even higher by the end of the decade, with inflation also being high. Although the monetarist economic policies of Margaret Thatchers Conservative government saw inflation reduced after 1979, unemployment soared in the early 1980s and in 1982, it exceeded 3,000,000, a level that had not been seen for some 50 years. That represented one in eight of the workforce, with unemployment exceeding 20% in some places that had relied on declining industries such as coal mining.However, it was a time of high unemployment in all other major industrialised nations as well. By the spring of 1983, unemployment had risen by 6% in the previous 12 months, compared to 10% in Japan, 23% in the US, and 34% in West Germany (seven years before Reunification).Unemployment in the United Kingdom remained above 3,000,000 until the spring of 1987, when the economy enjoyed a boom. By the end of 1989, unemployment had fallen to 1,600,000.
The unemployment rate is expressed as a percentage and calculated as follows:

  
    
      
        
          Unemployment rate
        
        =
        
          
            Unemployed workers
            Total labor force
          
        
        ×
        100
      
    
    {\displaystyle {\text{Unemployment rate}}={\frac {\text{Unemployed workers}}{\text{Total labor force}}}\times 100}
  As defined by the International Labour Organization, "unemployed workers" are those who are currently not working but are willing and able to work for pay, currently available to work, and have actively searched for work. Individuals who are actively seeking job placement must make the effort to be in contact with an employer, have job interviews, contact job placement agencies, send out resumes, submit applications, respond to advertisements, or some other means of active job searching within the prior four weeks. Simply looking at advertisements and not responding will not count as actively seeking job placement.