Not Working – Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?

This is a searching and incisive study of the labour market and patterns of work, especially since the financial crash of 2008. It highlights connections between employment, economic policy, politics and mental health, shedding a great deal of light on contemporary developments and building on earlier insights from Keynes and Beveridge ('misery leads to hate'). Already in 1920 in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Keynes was warning about the effects of hardship at the limits of human endurance, when people will eventually listen to 'whatever instruction of hope, illusion, or revenge is carried to them in the air.' Again in the 1930s, he was advocating government spending to lift the economy and identified the state of 'semi-slump' which we have been undergoing collectively since 2008 - it is forecast that there will be no real growth in wages in the UK between 2007 and 2022, an almost unprecedented situation. Blanchflower argues that the employment figures are deceptive in concealing a large amount of underemployment and part-time work where people would prefer well-paid full-time jobs. The consequence is insecurity and low wage growth, with related mental and physical health issues manifest in figures for stress, unhappiness, depression, hopelessness, low sense of self-worth and suicide - in addition, many communities have been fractured by a large-scale unemployment, resulting in a loss of social cohesion.

Few of these developments have been recognised by experts, and Blanchflower found himself in a minority of one when he was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. He argues that society cannot function if everyone is for themselves and the elite is seen to have been feathering their own nests with little regard for growth in inequality that has led to a breakdown of trust seen symptomatically in the votes for Brexit and Trump. Vernon Bogdanor's view on populism is of particular interest in highlighting the consensus within the elite across the political spectrum, and pointing out that the left with its identity politics has not in fact been identifying with the disaffected majority who have been missing out on economic development. As a society, we need to address the deeper underlying causes of helplessness and hopelessness correlated with this deteriorating situation in the labour market.

In addition, we now have the prospect of automation leading to more widespread unemployment – people need a sense of purpose, contribution and meaning, not just security of basic income. This means rebuilding trust and ties that bind, so that people perceive that we are all indeed in it together - as has manifestly not been the case here in France. In advocating various policies for 'putting the pedal to the metal' and generating full employment, the author advances a number of constructive suggestions, particularly in terms of infrastructure development, but the underlying dynamic of perpetual economic growth in relation to limited resources is not addressed. However, the social and economic situation is urgent, experts are running out of ideas, and we have record levels of debt constraining our room for manoeuvre, not to mention unfulfillable promises made by politicians and leading to a fruitless blame game (there is a very good discussion of immigration in this respect, showing how reality and rhetoric, fact and opinion do not match). Maybe a New (Green) Deal would be a good start.