150 Bakstenen - Mortsel

Issued by the municipality of Mortsel as a local labor voucher, this piece belongs to a category of Belgian commune tokens struck in the early 1980s to compensate unemployed workers participating in public works schemes — a response to unemployment rates that had climbed sharply following the oil shocks of the 1970s. Municipalities received state subsidies to fund such programs, and these tokens served as a non-cash accounting unit between the commune and its temporary workforce. Mortsel, a dense industrial suburb south of Antwerp, had particular exposure to the economic contraction of that period.