Beyond unemployment: the collapsing categories of the liberal labour market

1For much of the twentieth century, unemployment remained a political touchstone against which the strength (or weakness) of government policy was assessed. The Great Depression of the 1930s, the cause not only of mass unemployment but also of the spread of fascism and of war itself, formed a major point of reference in this regard. From 1945, the containment or reduction of numbers out of work formed a primary objective of western European governments. National statistics offered an apparently impartial assessment of the state of labour markets and, by inference, of the economy and social well-being. Such measures have continued to be widely employed in political debate, econometric modelling and social analysis. Classification and measurement are commonly vested in independent statistical offices to guarantee objectivity: a scientific analysis to provide the foundations for “evidence-based policy” informed by objective fact. While the numbers themselves are sporadically chall