This monograph outlines public policy responses to deal with the effects of forced worklife changes fashioned by government in the United States, Japan, and Western European countries. From the Morrill Act of 1862, through New Deal policy initiatives and on to the "active" manpower policies operating in Europe, the record of government programs and the economic theories underlying them are surveyed and assessed. Special attention is given in this review to the identification of the role assigned education and training as a work-life adjustment mechanism. The account traces the enduring tension in public policy responses between adjustment to change (epitomized by the education and training approach) and resistance to change in the American workplace. A case is presented for the fuller development of countercyclical education and training policy incorporating relevant and useful elements of the European experience. Such a policy would call for programs which would expand public education and training opportunities during business cycle downswings or other planned-for slack periods in the labor market, as in the 1980 case of a planned recession. Through such expanded education and training opportunities, the stock of workforce skills and worker mobility would be preserved and enhanced. Such a policy stands in sharp contrast to present policy and practice in the United States, in which both public and private education and training activity diminishes during economic downswings. How countercyclical programs are designed and financed abroad and could be structured in the U.S. are discussed. (KC)