Richard Layard is one of Britain's foremost applied economists, whose work has had a profound impact on the policy debate in Britain and abroad. This book contains his most influential articles on the subject of unemployment. It is published along with a companion volume Inequality , which deals with these topics and with economic transition. Unemployment explains what causes unemployment and proposes remedies to reduce it. There is a strong focus on how unemployed people are treated and how this affects unemployment - including Layard's well-known recommendation of a job-guarantee for long term unemployed people. Other key topics covered are the effect of unions and wage bargaining, the effect of low skill, and the possible role of rigid employment laws. The book opens with Richard Layard's personal credo Why I became an Economist .

Youth have always had higher unemployment rates. Unemployed youth without previous work experience often are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits when they first enter the labour market. Part of the ADAPT Labour Studies Book-Series, this book intends to deal with these challenges, to make sure that youth is not wasted on the young.

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.

Youth have always had higher unemployment rates – about twice or more than the average – as they are usually the last to be hired in an expansion and the first to be let go in a recession. In addition, young people engage in extensive job searching in their early years, and this can imply considerable job churning as both youth and employers look for a good match. This highlights the importance of facilitating the school-to-work transition and having early interventions to assist such youth before negative conditions set in. It also highlights the potential importance of determining those young people most “at risk” of long-term unemployment, and of targeting or streaming them into programmes that will yield the largest incremental net benefits given their characteristics. Unemployed youth without previous work experience often are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits when they first enter the labour market. When they do receive job search assistance, they often face a bewildering array of programmes that are available to assist them, often with little guidance to help them select the programs that best meet their needs. Consequently, ensuring that today’s youth do not become a “lost generation” is an urgent matter. George Bernard Shaw once said that it is too bad that “youth is wasted on the young”, implying that youth do not realize the opportunities they have as youth and only see them as they get older. There is a danger, however, that many of today’s youth may be never have those opportunities and hence not even see them with hindsight. This book and others in the ADAPT Labour Studies Book-Series are intended to deal with these challenges, to make sure that youth is not wasted on the young.

Why is unemployment higher in some countries than others? Why does it fluctuate between decades? Why are some people at greater risk than others? Layard and Nickell have worked on these issues for thirty years. Their famous model, first published in 1986, is now used throughout the world. It asserts that unemployment must be high enough to reduce the real wages for which workers settle to the level justified by productivity. So what affects 'wage push'? The authors showed early on that the key factors affecting 'wage push' are how unemployed workers are treated and how wages are negotiated. If unemployed people get benefits without being required to accept jobs, vacancies go unfilled and mass unemployment results. The solution is welfare-to-work policies like those now introduced in most parts of the world. The authors have proposed these policies for the last twenty-five years in a series of key articles reproduced in this book. Their original analysis explains the subsequent movement of unemployment over the last two decades. They conclude the book with a new chapter on what should be done in the recession: no-one, they say, should be given unemployment benefit beyond a year, after which they should be offered work.

Suicide terrorism represents a tangible challenge to national, regional and global security. This much is not in question; but opinions differ, conceptually and normatively, as to its root causes, factors and motives.This book presents the research papers delivered at the conference ‛Contemporary Suicide Terrorism: Origins, Trends and Ways of Tackling it’ held in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2010. The conference was funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme, and provided a forum for dialogue and discussion between scholars and security practitioners from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Romania and Russia. The focus of the conference was on methodological and theoretical approaches to suicide terrorism researches. Topics addressed include: the effectiveness of suicide terrorism; the roots of suicide terrorism and its religious legitimation; the impact of new technologies on the radicalization process; terrorism and the drug trade; female suicide bombers; and migration, radicalization and disorder in the EU. Examples are drawn from experiences in the Maghreb, the West Bank and Gaza Strip in Israel, Dagestan, Romania, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The book conveys the spirit of tolerance, exchange of ideas, dialogue and convergence that dominated the conference. It offers a contribution to better understanding between societies and the fostering of a culture of peace and non-violence.

As Australia’s economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, jobs growth is bouncing back in most sectors, in spite of disruptions from lockdowns and many workers being based at home. Meanwhile, the recent modest rise in the JobSeeker payment has been broadly criticised as insufficient to help recipients find work and keep up with the costs of living, entrenching financial stress and mental distress, and affecting motivation and skills. Of additional concern is the rate of underemployment, which has overtaken the jobless rate. Most new jobs being created are in part-time, casual or insecure gig work, affecting a higher proportion of young people. Is job insecurity now the norm for many Australians? This title explains the fundamentals around the measurement and types of unemployment and reveals who it most affects. It also examines the latest employment trends and impacts of casualisation on job security. Government policies and social sector strategies for tackling the economic and social consequences of unemployment and underemployment are also featured. Finding a job, and indeed enough employment, can be hard work in itself.