This article examines the extent of employment policy continuity under the Labour government elected in May 1997. It explores four specific questions. First, to what extent has Labour accepted the training orthodoxy permeating employment policy? Second, is the Labour government able to reconcile an interventionist supply-side approach with an institutional framework favouring decentralized employer-led responses to unemployment? Third, to what extent has Labour adopted and advanced the coercive elements of Conservative employment policy. Finally, does Labour's support for employment subsidies represent a relegitimation of state intervention in the arena of job creation?
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