The Causes of Structural Unemployment: Socio-political and Economic perspectives on Changes in Labor Markets

The Causes of Structural Unemployment skillfully integrates socio-political and economic perspectives to highlight the major changes in the structure of labor markets in affluent industrialized nations. Recent years have seen growing concern over declining jobs, and though corporate profits have picked up after the Great Recession of 2008, jobs almost have not. It is possible that “jobless recoveries” could become a permanent feature of Western economies.
This illuminating book, by By: Thomas Janoski , David Luke and Christopher Oliver, provides 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, while the single-minded focus on shareholder value and market manipulations destroys the labor market.
Weaving together varied literature and data, the authors consider in the final chapter what actions and policy initiatives societies might take to alleviate these threats.
This well written and researched book will be insightful reading for economic sociologists and political economists, and for anyone searching for a deeper understanding of unemployment, inequality and the future of work in these turbulent times.