How does labor reallocation across industries impact recessions? This paper takes up this question for interwar Britain, where the Great Depression coincided with significant structural shifts resulting from World War I and the return to the gold standard. The extent to which workers reallocated across industries in response to these allocative shocks is examined using historical data on relative changes in employment and unemployment by industry. Impediments to worker reallocation are found to have played a substantial role in the interwar unemployment crisis, but labor market fluidity varied considerably across sectors, regions, and gender. The Great Depression intensified these patterns, but leaving the gold standard was associated with only a modest improvement in fluidity. Differences in worker reallocation across demographic, industrial, and regional groups shape our understanding of the causes of interwar unemployment and may have implications for modern policymaking regarding labor reallocation and recessions.