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Concepts of Unemployment and the Structure of Employment

Date

1995

Authors

Osberg, Lars

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Abstract

Section 1 notes that a continuing reason for dissatisfaction with the economics literature on employment is its focus on the decision-making of workers, rather than that of firms, and its neglect of shifting structures of employment. Section 2 outlines a model of endogenous change in employers' decisions on the structure of employment, in which the rate of unemployment is partly determined by the percentage of firms who follow a casualized "just in time" employment strategy, while the profitability of such a strategy increases as aggregate unemployment increases. Section 3 asks how the vocabulary of analysis of unemployment can be interpreted if firms make structural decisions on employment. Section 4 concludes that increased "labor market flexibility" may largely mean lower average real wages and greater insecurity for workers.

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Citation

Osberg, Lars. 1995. "Concepts of Unemployment and the Structure of Employment." Economie Appliquee 48(1): 157-181.

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