Laws in most West European countries give workers strong job rights, including the right to advance notice of layoff and the right to severance pay or other compensation if laid off. Many of these same countries also encourage hours adjustment in lieu of layoffs by providing prorated...

Like most Western European countries, Germany stringently regulates dismissals and layoffs. Critics contend that this regulation raises the costs of employment adjustment and hence impedes employers' ability to respond to fluctuations in demand. Other German labor policies, however, most...

Trevor Bain explores the industry restructurings that occurred in eight major steel-producing countries, including the U.S., Germany and Japan. He begins by categorizing each country as having either an adversarial or a cooperative industrial relations system, and then analyzes the differences...

This book's essays analyze innovative responses by unions, corporations and governments to job loss caused by economic restructuring, drawing on examples from Western Europe and the U.S.

It is widely recognized that human capital is essential to sustaining a competitive economy at high and rising living standards. Yet acceptance of persistent high unemployment, stagnant wages, and other indicators of declining job quality suggests that policymakers and employers undervalue human...