Industry

• Traditional industries like coalmining and textiles began to decline
• Ford employed 120,000 workers in 1929, by 1931 this had shrunk to 37,000
• Competition from Europe increased after the recovery from WW1
• The success and dynamism of the new industries was part of the problem - the new technologies and production techniques were saturating the market
• General Electric's income fell from $60m in 1930, to $14m in 1932. Its workforce fell from 88,000 to 41,000
• The growing unemployment added to the problems - new consumers stopped consuming and so employers had to fire people due to less consumer demand.
• Historians have also stressed the uneven prosperity of the 1920s - wages did not raise fast enough to enable workers to be adepquate consumers.