The midterm impact of the economic crisis on the employment situation in the EU member states varied largely (European Commission, 2010a, Chapter 1). Whereas the Baltic States, Ireland, and above all Spain registered job losses of more than 10 percent from immediately before to after the crisis, that is, between the second quarter of 2008 and the…

In this paper, the authors first discuss the Neumark and Troske piece, and then compare the U.S. context to that in Europe and Korea, as described by the Caspar, Hartwig, and Moench and the Cho and Shin contributions. Although they are in basic agreement with Neumark and Troske on the extent and depth of the current employment situation, they…

In "The Corrosion of Character" Richard Sennett contends that the storied nature of human experience is stunted by "conditions of the new economy". He argues that individuals are unable to develop "coherent life narratives" in the absence of job security. Thus, continuous employment somehow provides coherence: at…