The Causes of Structural Unemployment: Four Factors that Keep People from the Jobs they Deserve(Work & Society)

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.

Table of Contents:
Tables, Figures, and Boxes viii Abbreviations x Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Shifting from Manufacturing to Services and Skill Mismatches 26 3 Transnational Corporations Enthralled with Outsourcing and Offshoring 53 4 Technological Change and Job Loss 82 5 Global Trade, Shareholder Value, and Financialization as Structural Causes of Unemployment 113 6 Fixing Structural Unemployment 142 7 Conclusion: Can We Trust Transnational Corporations? 173 Notes 179 References 190 Subject Index 214 Name Index 223

About the Author :
Thomas Janoski is Professor of Sociology at the University of Kentucky Christopher Oliver is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kentucky David Luke is Research Assistant at the University of Kentucky

Review :
''The authors deftly integrate sociological, political, and economic perspectives to highlight the major changes in the structure of labor markets that are responsible for the upsurge in the structural unemployment and economic inequality that haunt the contemporary United States.'' Arne L. Kalleberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ''The Causes of Structural Unemployment is a comprehensive look at the causes of long-term structural unemployment in affluent industrialized nations. It combines and illustrates how individual biographies are tied up to larger social and economic processes - how the single-minded focus on shareholder value and market manipulations destroys the labor market for good jobs.'' Kevin T. Leicht, University of Iowa "This is a well-researched book with detailed references. It successfully links globalisation to the rise of long-term unemployment in the advanced Western countries." Political Studies Review