Only a small percentage of workers in low paid occupations work while drawing unemployment benefit, and the black economy in Britain is small. Unionization of the workforce in Britain is prohibited only in the armed forces, public sector security services and police force. Manufacturing, transport and distributive trades are highly unionized, but militant unionism is no longer common, due to the fragmentation of once-national industries. The Labour Government requires employers to recognize unions where at least half of the workforce belongs to a trade union, and the 1990 Employment Act makes unions responsible for members' industrial actions, including unofficial strikes, unless union officials repudiate the action in writing. Unofficial strikers can be legally dismissed, and voluntary work stoppage is considered a breach of contract.
Women now form almost one third of the workforce, increasingly in managerial positions.
Children under the age of 16 may work in an industrial enterprise only as part of an educational course. Local education authorities can limit employment of children under 16 years old if working will interfere with a child's education. A persistent characteristic of the British workforce is its lack of mobility, between trades and geographically. Successive governments have introduced retraining schemes and grants with some success in creating a workforce adapted to the changing pattern of demand. Nothing so far has had any real effect on the workers' general disinclination to move from areas of high unemployment to areas that are attracting inward investment.