List of Tables and Figures - Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - Restructuring and Recession; K.Purcell and S.Wood - Contract Work in the Recession; R.Fevre - Re-dividing Labour: Factory Politics and Work Reorganisation; B.Jones and M.Rose - Recruitment as a Means of Control; M.Maguire - Multinational Companies and Women's Labour; R.Pearson - Work, Home and the Restructuring of Jobs; H.Bradley - Word Processing and the Secretarial Labour Process; J.Webster - New Technology and the Service Class; J.Child - Rationalisation, Technical Change and Employee Relations; W.Littek - Women and Technology: Opportunity is not Enough; C.Cockburn - Gender, Exploitation and Consent amongst Sheltered Housing Wardens; S.Cunnison - Bibliography - Index

Increasingly high unemployment has brought with it a multitude of consequences affecting those without jobs and, beyond them, their families, friends and communities. This book reports findings from original research. It explores, often in the words of the unemployed and others involved, what life without a job is like. It challenges many widely held beliefs about the unemployed - that they are workshy, price themselves out of jobs or earn money illegally on the side - and explores where such misconceptions come from. It reveals the inherent contradictions involved in trying to search for work whilst coping with the experience of unemployment.