One in seven of the adult work-force in Britain is now without work. But what does it really mean to be without work? And what can a caring society do to help restore each person's sense of dignity and worth when we still believe 'you are what you do'?

In the first of four programmes Janet Cohen talks to John Swallow, president of the National Association of Head Teachers and Jim Kennedy, a parish priest working with the young unemployed in north-east London. Janet also looks at the realities of life facing young school-leavers in Haverhill, the once-thriving GLC overspill town which now has the highest unemployment rate in East Anglia.