Unemployment – and underemployment – of large proportions of the labour force is a central factor in almost all of today's developing countries. For many, this situation has steadily worsened despite the achievement during the last decade of relatively high rates of economic growth. Poverty and malaise characterise wide areas of the countryside as well as large sectors of major cities. These problems were explored by the eighth in the series of international conferences on development, sponsored by Cambridge University Overseas Development Committee. Key questions were posed: What are the facts of unemployment and underemployment? What are its causes? What measures should be taken to generate more employment opportunities and to reduce, simultaneously, the more glaring inequalities in the distribution of income?