Drawing on the latest Russian and Western research, the contributors in this book consider the debates surrounding the recorded levels of official unemployment and question why these levels remain so low. They offer theoretical and empirical critiques of orthodox Western interpretations of the Russian labour market and discuss labour market flexibility, proposing that increased flexibility has resulted in a downgrading of skills in the industrial labour force. This phenomenon, they argue, has particularly affected women who, as a result, have now become marginalized in the labour market. In the detailed empirical evidence they conclude that both the employed and unemployed are active and adaptable in their search for new forms of employment and, as a consequence, will respond to more active and effective policy interventions. In view of this the contributors raise questions about appropriate industrial and labour market policies for all transitional economies.

Structural Adjustment without Mass Unemployment? will be welcomed by students, researchers and academics working in the fields of labour and industrial economics and the economics of transition.