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 Content
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
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