Lack of jobs

Shortage of opportunities for work
Scarcity of well-paying jobs

Incidence

The lack of jobs is not restricted to manual work. In the industrialized countries, especially in the West, organizational restructuring in response to recession and increased competition has resulted in extensive management layoffs, with reduced probability that those made redundant would find further employment in their field of expertise. Few new jobs are being created in the 1990s.

In Europe there are likely to be 19 million unemployed by 1994 of which 50% will be long-term unemployed. By 2000, 10 million new jobs will be required to cut the rate of increase of unemployment to 7%, and by 2010, 25 million new jobs will be required to handle the expected 15% increase in the EEC/EU labour force.

Claim

Chronic unemployment, especially among any underclass, is predominantly structural in nature, meaning either that there are not enough jobs available, or that those which exist require qualifications that such people do not have, or that the jobs are located in places where they do not live, or else that they offer such dispiritingly low wages that they are not worth the effort. The root of the problem is therefore lack of jobs, the provision of which is the ultimate solution to unemployment.