Unemployment has been somewhat neglected within the world of economics in recent years. Primarily, this is because the subject has become of less of an issue for many countries. However, even within the EU, several regions still suffer from worrying levels of people out of work. Europe has experienced significant fluctuations in unemployment levels since the Second World War, and there have been many attempts at analysing the problem and confronting the related issues.
This book explores the subject of unemployment in detail, analysing past successes and failures in the area, and offering lessons and proposals for the future. Focusing on the EU, but with coverage of several regions worldwide, this book brings together a wide range of experts to examine the experiences and approaches of a variety of countries to this issue of employment, and provides an overview of unemployment and its economic implications which will be invaluable to all scholars and policymakers interested in this key area.

For many years, government policy has associated young people 'being NEET' (Not in Education, Employment or Training) with educational underachievement, worklessness, generational poverty, poor health, antisocial behaviour, and reduced life expectancies. Researchers and policymakers continue to debate whether young people become NEET as a result of their own choices (i.e. their personal agency), or as a result of external factors (i.e. social, political and economic structures). Most recognise that the truth is somewhere between the two, but a clear understanding of how each interacts in causing young people to become NEET has so far been elusive, making the development of effective policy and practice problematic. Agency, Structure and the NEET Policy Problem makes headway against this problem through an original approach that draws on social cognitive theory and the lived experiences of young people themselves. Investigating the lives of NEET young people between the ages of 17-21 in London, this book elucidates the interactions between agency and structure that lead to them becoming NEET, and in doing so, offers a new perspective on the phenomenon. It offers a valuable critique of existing policy, providing both breadth and detail on the factors affecting the trajectories of young people in their transitions to continued education, training, or employment. It offers a way forward for all who are interested in developing, supporting and implementing a revitalised approach to NEET policy and practice, and a framework around which a coherent multidisciplinary approach to addressing NEET could be developed.

Does flexible working really provide a better work-life balance? Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. This volume offers an original examination of flexible working using data from 30 European countries and drawing on studies conducted in Australia, the US and India. Rather than providing a better work-life balance, the book reveals how flexible working can lead to exploitation, which manifests differently for women and men, such as more care responsibilities or increased working hours. Taking a critical stance, this book investigates the potential risks and benefits of flexible working and provides crucial policy recommendations for overcoming the negative consequences.

Economic theory and empirical research confirm that the rising international integration caused an increase in aggregate income at least for the industrialized countries, although trade liberalization is no Pareto improvement. In the empirical literature, there is a consensus that the international integration implies a destruction of low-skilled job vacancies and an increase in income, while the conclusions are mixed concerning the implication for the overall unemployment rate. This book seeks to find theoretical explanations to these empirical regularities. The book poses three questions: What are the implications of trade liberalization for the labor market in the presence of trade unions if we account for both firm and worker heterogeneity? What are the implications of a redistribution policy if the government chooses unemployment benefits to partially compensate the losers of trade liberalization?, and what is the optimal redistribution scheme for trade gains if the government explicitly takes into account the consequences for the income distribution? This book presents a rigorous theoretical analysis to answer the questions posed. Beside the well-known firm-selection effect on goods markets caused by trade liberalization, a selection process on the labor market -the worker-selection effect - is presented. The book also argues that if welfare is measured in the traditional manner, i.e. income per capita, compensating the loser of trade liberalization by paying unemployment benefits decreases welfare, but the intensity of the reduction differs with respect to the chosen funding of the unemployment benefits. Another significant contribution of this book is that if the objective function of the government, i.e. the modified welfare function, includes both aggregate income and income inequality, the redistribution of trade gains can lead to an increase in welfare.

The concepts and theories surrounding the economics of unemployment have multiplied and evolved over the course of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. This book is an essential companion for all interested in understanding more about past debates and current issues in the economics of unemployment.

At the time in which this book was first published in 1987, mass unemployment had emerged as the dominant, most visible, problem of the West European economies. The post-war experience of expansion was remarkable in that it experienced growth high enough to sustain a consensus on the possibility and desirability of full employment. This period declined into one of poor economic performance in the 1970s. Growth slowed and the subsequent years were characterised by painful adjustment and dislocation. In this challenging discussion of ways to overcome unemployment Ciaran Driver stresses the importance of managed restructuring. Driver focuses attention of the role of investment in fixed assets and human resources, and argues that governments do have a major role in steering the economy through a period of turbulent change, and that there are policies which can move the economy towards full employment. This book is ideal for students of business and economics.

The idea was simple: pack a suitcase, go to another city where you have no connections and try to find a job, anonymously. That was the idea that took Florence Aubenas - one of France's most accomplished undercover journalists - on a journey into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Day after day she searched for work, one unemployed worker among others, with no special skills or qualifications. She immersed herself in the crowd of job seekers, going from one employment office to another, eventually managing to cobble together a few hours working as a night cleaner on a ferry that crossed the English Channel. For many people the global financial crisis seems real enough but remote from their daily lives. They have little sense of what it really means to be unemployed in the midst of a recession. Florence Aubenas was determined to find out. This book is the story of her journey. The Night Cleaner became an instant number one bestseller in France and has subsequently become a bestseller in many countries throughout the world. Better than any academic treatise on the topic, this book shows what recession means today.

Sebastian Dullien gives a novel explanation for unemployment and inflation in the Euro-Zone. He argues that unemployment stems from a lack of cooperation between unions and monetary authorities: In an economy with endogenous money as EMU, wage setters are responsible for price stability while the central bank is responsible for the level of output. Cooperation between both actors is necessary for high employment and low inflation. The current institutional set-up is found to be unable to assure cooperation.

Multinationals have global reach in their search for profits; women, even more than men, are confined to their immediate community in their search for jobs. This book examines the interaction between multinationals and women in UK, Ireland, France and Germany, looking at inward investment by US and Japanese multinationals, as well as outward investment by European multinationals.

Covering the development of the U.S. labor market from 1880-1940, The Fictitious Commodity stresses relations of authority (versus power) in employment. Deemphasizing concepts of market and contract, Korver focuses on the differential statuses of employer/employee and demonstrates the inadequacy of conventional economic discourse on labor market analysis. U.S. companies, while undergoing rapid industrialization, tackled both organizational and technological problems. According to Korver, unskilled labor was the common root to these problems. Emphasizing the importance of this usually forgotten category, Korver's history of the U.S. labor market is seen through America's unskilled labor--its vicissitudes and its varying options of citizenship. In 19th-century America unskilled labor was both expensive and in short supply. According to Korver, new immigration coupled unskilled labor with the novel option of citizenship. Removing its segregated status, new immigration became an integral part of the emerging world of mass production. Korver demonstrates how the ground was prepared technologically by connecting mechanization and standardization. Bureaucratization of employment relationships, development of industrial unionism, and social security serve to illustrate the organizational integration of the new immigrant. Advanced students and researchers in the field of labor economics, labor history, and the sociology of labor markets will appreciate Korver's unique approach to the history of the American labor market.

This timely analysis examines the complex state of youth unemployment across Europe and offers cogent policy suggestions for addressing this longstanding societal problem. The findings reveal numerous national and regional factors affecting youth joblessness-not only market and economic challenges, but also deep sociocultural and political dynamics underlying the situations. Coverage details how the standard transition from school to work is disrupted in an already depressed adult job market, and compares a wide range of responses in terms of both young people's educational decision-making and national youth policy. In particular, contributors assess whether the current crop of Youth Guarantee programs can/should be a model for employment policy across the continent. Among the topics covered: Youth labour market prospects and recent policy developments. Youth labour market in Central and Eastern Europe. Early school dropout in Spain: evolution during the Great Recession. Overeducation among European university graduates: a constraint or a choice? Promoting youth employment in Europe: evidence-based policy lessons. The evaluation of a Finnish youth guarantee: lessons for Europe? European Youth Labour Markets is of interest to an international audience of economists, sociologists, and leaders in governmental, non-profit, and corporate sectors through its broad and comparative macroeconomic focus and implications for policymaking, research, resource allocation, and policy evaluation.

The object of this study is to clarify why and how it happened that women remained marginal in the processes of social change that took place during the development of Israeli society. Bernstein examines the role played by continuous unemployment, by the predominance of construction work, and by the dependence on the World Zionist Organization and the Mandate authorities. She also shows how the individual and collective achievements of women shaped the means for future achievements and how their failure impeded further efforts. The author demonstrates that their failure to change the status of women did not stem from any sort of biological imperative, nor from some inevitable trend of social movements towards conservatism, but rather from the power relations between the women who aspired to change and those who opposed it. The aspiration for change was real and ran deep, but its advocates were few and weak, while its adversaries--and the apathetic-- were numerous and strong. And, the struggle took place under economic conditions that would have made significant change difficult even if the balance of power had been more favorable. Finally, the author demonstrates how the movement for innovation and change lost its impetus, and conservative elements won.

Do accelerating trade and foreign direct investment - experimented by most developing countries in the 1990s - imply a positive, negative, or neutral impact in terms of employment, income inequality and poverty alleviation? This book provides some empirically-tested answers to this question using an open-minded, unconventional economic approach and deriving original policy implications. ELI BERMAN Boston University, USA LUIGI CAMPIGLIO Catholic University of Milano, Italy GIOVANNI ANDREA CORNIA Firenze University, Italy PAOLO FIGINI Bologna University, Italy AUGUSTIN FOSU African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi JEAN BAPTISTE GROS International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland SANJAYA LALL Oxford University, UK JOHN LANGMORE International Labour Office, New York, USA STEPHEN MACHIN University College, London, UK GIORGIO BARBA NAVARETTI Milano University, Italy MARIACRISTINA PIVA Catholic University of Piacenza, Italy SANJAY REDDY Columbia University, New York, USA ENRICO SANTARELLI Bologna University, Italy VINCENZO SPIEZIA Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris, France LANCE TAYLOR New School University, New York, USA RAYMOND TORRES Organizatio

Job loss is one of the most important issues in the capitalist world today: endless reports document the increasing scale of unemployment. This title, first published in 1982, adopted a new approach to the geography of job loss, to assess why redundancy happens and where. Massey and Meegan argue that an increase in dismissal does not necessarily mean that an industry is in decline; rather, it can be the result of a variety of issues, including production for profit and the relationship between industry and location. Throughout the book, discussions about theory and methodology are complemented by industry-based case studies. This title addresses issues of particular relevance to today's economic climate, and will be particularly valuable to students with an interest in employment and job loss, and industrial labour and profitability.

First published in 1922, Hobson's study of the depression and resulting unemployment in the aftermath of the First World War is a far-sighted analysis which looks beyond the consequences of the war itself, at the root economic causes of the crisis. Dealing with issues such as the failure of consumption, trade fluctuations, the balance of spending and saving, and spiralling credit as factors which lay at the root of the depression, Hobson's study is a document of considerable economic, social and historical value, which still has much to teach the modern reader, whether interested layperson or student of economics.

First published in 1896, this seminal work considers the Question of the Unemployed at the height of imperialist capitalism. Hobson proposes a controversial theory of social progress, which argues that unemployment is a natural and necessary result of the mal-distribution of consumption power. In a comprehensive assessment of the practicalities of capitalism, The Problem of the Unemployed considers the root causes and meaning of unemployment and possible solutions to the issue.

This is a theoretical discussion and internal critique of mainstream law and economics scholarship, especially as it approaches the issue of paternalism. Cserne discusses how, and to what extent, economic analysis can explain and/or justify the limitations on freedom of contract, with special emphasis on paternalism.

Unemployment is one of the most politically explosive issues in China and has gained further prominence as a result of the present global financial crisis. The novelty, urgency, and complexity of Chinese unemployment have compelled the government to experiment with policy initiatives that originate in the West, initiatives such as training programmes, career and psychological counselling, a web-based national labour-market information network, and labour-market insurance, and also other employment-related initiatives such as using community (shequ) organizations as the base for new mechanisms of governance and informal job generation. This book examines these initiatives which represent China's attempt to institutionalize, professionalize and humanize its approach to governance, drawing heavily on international norms and standards in employment regulation. Based on extensive original research including semi-structured interviews, the book argues that although the Chinese government is not a liberal democracy, it is increasingly using liberal techniques to govern. The book discusses the ways in which the government combines the new techniques with old campaign-style policy techniques, which not only makes the state's power visible, but also allows it to claim credit for managing unemployment.

First published in 1922, Hobson's study of the depression and resulting unemployment in the aftermath of the First World War is a far-sighted analysis which looks beyond the consequences of the war itself, at the root economic causes of the crisis. Dealing with issues such as the failure of consumption, trade fluctuations, the balance of spending and saving, and spiralling credit as factors which lay at the root of the depression, Hobson's study is a document of considerable economic, social and historical value, which still has much to teach the modern reader, whether interested layperson or student of economics.

In Western Europe, the notion of social exclusion is rapidly diffusing in recent years. This book investigates the notion of social exclusion as a new way to approach social issues such as the 'new poverty' long-term-unemployment, precariousness, social polarization and disintegration. Particular attention is paid to both the global relevance of an approach in terms of social exclusion and its value compared to more conventional approaches in terms of poverty of deprivation. It is shown that social exclusion goes beyond these by explicitly embracing the relational as well as the distributional aspects of poverty and emphasizing processes. In this book, the authors explore the specific forms of social exclusion in the ongoing processes of globalization, deregulation, crisis of the welfare state, and rise of individualism.

In an era of continued globalisation and economic-restructuring youth employment constitutes what many commentators regard as one of the key policy issues of our time. This important new book gives the first comprehensive overview of key concepts, theories and knowledge relating to youth employment in the Tourism sector. Specifically 'Youth Employment in Tourism and Hospitality' discusses rates of youth employment in tourism and hospitality, working conditions for youth and the role of youth employment in tourism in developing countries. It explores barriers to youth employment, from both supply and demand-side perspectives. It reviews the relationship between education, training and youth employment before looking at the education to work transition through the lenses of career decision-making and career development theories. It also discusses the role of tourism internships in early work socialisation, as well as graduate entrepreneurship in tourism. It is essential reading for those delivering and developing tourism programmes, and for students of tourism and hospitality. It also appeals to policy-makers and managers in the wide range of sectors that constitute tourism and hospitality and beyond as well as those in related fields such as education, human resources management and career guidance.