By the 1950s the main central banks were large organisations with thousands of employees, working predominantly in routine tasks such as currency processing and distribution. The 1940s had seen rapid internal expansion in response to the increased burden of regulating the financial system. For example, employment at the Bank of England doubled from 4,120 in 1939 (Hennessy 1995: 205) to 8,250 in 1950 (Vaubel 1997: 204). Many central banks acquired substantive new functions, including the administration of exchange controls, and in some cases new or increased responsibility for banking supervision. Though there was some levelling off and contraction in central bank employment in the 1950s, when the most draconian wartime and early post-war regulations were relaxed, the upward trend resumed in the 1960s. Recruitment of professional staff was stepped up as central banks extended their statistical and economic research functions and began to develop forecasting sections.