This is a fully revised and updated version of the author's undergraduate textbook on unemployment, previously titled "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market". The authors question the inevitability of present levels of unemployment in the Western world.

Since the economic and financial crisis of 2008, the proportion of unemployed young people has exceeded any other group of unemployed adults. This phenomenon marks the emergence of a laborscape. This concept recognizes that, although youth unemployment is not consistent across the world, it is a coherent problem in the global political economy. This book examines this crisis of youth unemployment, drawing on international case studies. It is organized around four key dimensions of the crisis: precarity, flexibility, migration, and policy responses. With contributions from leading experts in the field, the chapters offer a dynamic portrait of unemployment and how this is being challenged through new modes of resistance. This book provides cross-national comparisons, both ethnographic and quantitative, to explore the contours of this laborscape on the global, national, and local scales. Throughout these varied case studies is a common narrative from young workers, families, students, volunteers, and activists facing a new and growing problem. This book will be an imperative resource for students and researchers looking at the sociology of globalization, global political economy, labor markets, and economic geography.

The recent recession has led to an ongoing crisis in the youth labour market in Europe. This timely book deals with a number of areas related to the context, choices and experiences of young people, the consequences of which resonate throughout their lives. The focus of the contributions to this volume is on issues which, whilst undoubtedly important, have thus far received less attention than they arguably deserve. The first part of the book is concerned with issues related to education and training, covering matters such as the role of monopsony in training, the consequences of over-education, and the quality of educational institutions from primary to tertiary. The second part is primarily concerned with the long-term consequences of short-term choices and experiences including contributions on health-related choices, health consequences later in life, factors affecting the home-leaving decision, as well as an analysis of the increasing intergenerational transmission of inequality; a trend which accelerated during the recession. The last part of the book deals with issues related to youth unemployment and NEET – the direct consequence of the recession. This book contains a number of innovative analyses reporting significant findings that contrast with standard models. Some of the more interesting results directly contradict conventional wisdom on a number of topics from the importance of monopsony in training markets to the importance of transitory income changes on consumption of addictive goods. This book is suitable for those who study labor economics, political economy as well as employment and unemployment.

Arguing that Canada's unemployment crisis could have been avoided with better government policies, particularly less restrictive monetary control, contributors examine the effect of the Bank of Canada's zero-inflation policy and the role of unemployment insurance on the crisis of recent years. Analysis also includes discussion of unemployment in France, Germany, and Japan. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Since the 1970s the average level of unemployment in Australia has risen each decade. This has imposed huge economic, social and human costs, making unemployment one of the most pressing problems confronting Australia. Governments, however, seem powerless in the face of this problem. Drawing on the expertise of some of Australia's leading economists, this book, first published in 2000, argues that the currently fashionable approaches of wage cuts and further steps towards labour market flexibility will not solve the unemployment problem. In reality, unemployment and rising inequality are symptoms of the growing failure of contemporary labour markets to distribute jobs and incomes effectively. The contributors argue that the main solution to this problem is not wage cuts but jobs growth. This important book points to a way beyond the current policy malaise and offers detailed solutions to unemployment.