Structural unemployment and structural injustice

Abstract

<p>Structural unemployment refers to labour displacement attributable to neithereconomic cycles nor gaps between employment periods. Caused largely bytechnological changes, offshoring, changes to the industrial composition andlabour structure, and the financialisation of economies, structuralunemployment leaves many of its affected individuals materially,psychosocially, and relationally deprived. Structural unemployment shouldneither be conceived of as normatively acceptable in virtue of its being‘natural’, nor be viewed as primarily a phenomenon for which agents can beheld morally blameworthy and responsible for redress. Instead, the detrimentaleffects of structural unemployment are best conceptualised as an instanceof structural injustice, with no individual agent is morally responsible for theoutcomes, yet all agents involved in reproducing their background conditionswould thus bear forward-looking responsibilities to redress such unjust effects.Existing policy discussions of solutions to structural unemployment tend toplace significant emphasis upon governmental responses. Responding to thestructural injustice of structural unemployment would require actors beyondthe state to leverage the resources afforded to them by their social roles, toboth remedy the existing effects of and prevent future occurrences ofstructural unemployment, in ways that are sensitive to the extent by whichtheir actions reproduce the explanatory causes of injustices.</p>