First published in 'The Review of Economic Studies' and 'Oxford Economic Papers', these essays consider the natural rate of unemployment, and attempt to explain its determinants within different frameworks.

There is a specter haunting advanced industrial countries: structural unemployment. Recent years have seen growing concern over declining jobs, and though corporate profits have picked up after the Great Recession of 2008, jobs have not. It is possible that “jobless recoveries” could become a permanent feature of Western economies. This illuminating book focuses on the employment futures of advanced industrial countries, providing readers with the sociological imagination to appreciate the bigger picture of where workers fit in the new international division of labor. The authors piece together a puzzle that reveals deep structural forces underlying unemployment: skills mismatches caused by a shift from manufacturing to service jobs; increased offshoring in search of lower wages; the rise of advanced communication and automated technologies; and the growing financialization of the global economy that aggravates all of these factors. Weaving together varied literatures and data, the authors also consider what actions and policy initiatives societies might take to alleviate these threats. Addressing a problem that should be front and center for political economists and policymakers, this book will be illuminating reading for students of the sociology of work, labor studies, inequality, and economic sociology.

About the Book This book does not take a neutral stand on the issue of mass unemployment. It is an effort to expose capitalism's most outrageous feature - its compulsive need to use unemployment and the fear of unemployment to ensure the docility and subservience of its workers. Under the capitalist system, the stick of the fear of unemployment is necessary to keep workers' noses to the grindstone and make them perform to the satisfaction of their employers. The stick is needed because much work is boring, the carrot paid is less than a living wage, provides workers very little or no control over the work process, and stifles creativity - in short because the total carrot offered to numerous workers is so woefully inadequate. Under a different system, one in which working people participated fully in the decisions affecting what, how and for what purpose goods and services were produced; if we had a system based on economic democracy, there would be no need to use the stick of the fear of unemployment. The creativity of most of the millions of working people, now mostly dormant, would be awakened and the volume and quality of improvements and inventions especially in housing, energy, transit systems and health care would be so great as to tower high above and completely overshadow the number and purpose of the innovations created under the present system. The issue of unemployment is shrouded in half-truths and outright lies. As a result, there is almost total ignorance about the real causes of unemployment and worse still, about its very serious consequences. Many claim that there are enough jobs but that the unemployed are lazy and would rather be on welfare. While this may be true of a very small fraction of the unemployed, it is not true of the overwhelming majority. There have been numerous instances in which whenever advertisements calling for applicants for relatively well-paid jobs or for jobs that paid better than the minimum wage, the number of applicants that applied for those jobs were ten or more times greater than the number of jobs that were advertised. In September 26th of 1984, to mention just one instance, the Associated Press News Agency reported that "50,000 people lined up for 350 jobs." The report went on to say that "the applicants, some of whom waited in line for two days, hope to land a longshoreman's job paying $15.45 an hour or a marine clerk's job earning $17.45 an hour... However the fact that only 350 jobs are currently available didn't dismay the crowd, which queued up in a line in the San Pedro district [of Los Angeles] that stretched for 13 mile..." Clearly, the majority would rather have gainful employment at a living wage and live a life of dignity and integrity. Furthermore apart from the simple need to earn a living, productive employment is an indispensable part of the psychological makeup of human beings. Simply put, people want to feel useful. Prolonged joblessness is a serious threat to a person's self-esteem and destroying that self-esteem has appalling consequences. The ugly truth is that the system under which we live will not or cannot provide jobs for those who need them. The business class is simply not interested in full employment because mass unemployment provides them with many benefits. Among those benefits: a large pool of unemployed workers drives down the wages employers have to pay.

Since the beginning of the economic crisis of the 1980s considerable research has been dedicated to the study of the unemployment problem. Nevertheless, the phenomenon has not become fully understood, nor are its consequences adequately prevented. In this important new volume, On the Mysteries of Unemployment, economists and social scientists come together to offer the reader the latest insights on unemployment and policies regarding unemployment from the perspectives of both disciplines. On the Mysteries of Unemployment contains four main sections. Part One provides an introductory chapter and general overview. Part Two contains rich contributions that provide new insights from an economic science perspective, while Part Three offers a balanced view from social scientists. The final section is devoted to the examination of policy issues concerning unemployment. This volume, unique in its field, will be of interest to researchers, students, politicians and policy-makers.

Argues the cause of unemployment may be the government itself Redefining the way we think about unemployment in America today, Out of Work offers devastating evidence that the major cause of high unemployment in the United States is the government itself.