Suggests that governments, employers, and trade unions develop structural employment policies that, in conjunction with appropriate macro-economic policies, might lead to a more acceptable labor market outlook for the years ahead. Flexibility of the labor market, dimensions of change, and changing industrial structures are addressed. (JN)

Measures to directly create jobs have begun to occupy an important position in American economic policies. Most of these measures involve direct public service programs and employment subsidies. This paper explores the reasons for the emergence of such programs and notes that the economic rationale for these measures suggests a substantial…

The Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of l976, S-50, the Humphrey-Hawkins bill, is an attempt to focus the nation's attention and energy on the problem of attaining full employment. As a matter of law the nation would be committed to achieving an adult unemployment rate of 3% within four years. If those charged with the development and…

The conference reported here was held to bring together European manpower experts and United States representatives to discuss European manpower programs and policies developed and expanded as a result of the 1974-1976 recession and recovery, and methods for coordinating manpower and general economic policies. This report contains a list of the…

Both Germany and Great Britain have recently experienced increases in unemployment. Both countries have developed substantial labor market programs. Germany offers full-time adult training and retraining courses for employed and unemployed persons. Great Britain has a system of youth training but, until recently, has done little for adults. It has…

This paper explores the role of public jobs programs in the U.S. economy from the 1930s to the present. It postulates that jobs programs are necessary because they serve four separate but overlapping needs: alleviating joblessness, hardship, and poverty; helping the economy emerge from recession; providing jobs to able-bodied welfare recipients;…

On average, unemployed U.S. citizens remain jobless for much less time than their European counterparts do. The relatively low level of unemployment in the United States is attributable to two factors: a social protection system that offers far less protection than those in Western Europe do and a broad range of job openings. The fact that…

In the past the task of vocational educators has been to prepare people, especially youth, for known employment opportunities, but today we must be concerned about the adequacy of employment opportunities. The vocational system has paid too little attention to self-employed persons who discover and create their own jobs. These entrepreneurs are…

The United States has never had a consistent, unified work force development system. Instead, because of citizens' preference for decentralized government, most efforts at work force development have been sporadic and localized. From the 1960s until the early 1990s, Congress enacted between 125 and 175 narrowly-focused categorical employment…

The report consists of three parts: "The Design of a Federal Employment Program to Counter Recession"; "The Design of a Federal Employment Program in a Strategy to Raise Low Earnings"; and "The Design of a Guaranteed Job Opportunity as a Part of Welfare Reform". In Part 1, an Anti-Recession Program (ARP) is proposed. ARP is an automatically…

The moral and ethical values enunciated by America's leading religious organizations lay much of the groundwork for its major democratic institutions and establish the benchmarks by which U.S. employment conditions and policies should be measured. The public's perception of the economy's relative well-being is based on oversimplified statistical…

Written under a contract with the National Commission for Manpower Policy, this book contains eight chapters (each by a separate author) intended to aid in charting a national employment strategy and assessing the goal of full employment. Three main themes that pervade the book are (1) the responsibility of the federal government to create jobs,…

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has mandated the Youth Employment Network, an initiative to address youth unemployment. Policy recommendations have been finalized, including an ambitious political process now being put into place. It invites heads of state and government to develop national action plans with targets for job creation and…

A study assessed the potential development of service sectors in different cities throughout the country and compared the results of growth in these and other sectors with respect to their effects on (1) total employment; (2) the geographic dispersion of metropolitan employment; (3) central city fiscal capacity; (4) metropolitan cyclical…

Describes a study to determine the most effective of three postschool formal occupational training programs; what contributes the most to increasing the work earnings of male youths, especially those below poverty level; and whether training affects income. Notes implications for training programs and Comprehensive Employment and Training Act…