ABSTRACT
The political results of caring for the unemployed and maintaining high employment standards might have opposite effects on the political salience of unemployment. Unemployment is only politically damaging to those in power insofar as people attach as certain concept of unemployment whose causal and descriptive accounts lead them to blame the government. Self-employment makes unemployment less politically salient by blurring the distinctions between labor force categories. Unemployment is most meaningful when counterpoised against certain kinds of employment. The meaning and importance of unemployment has been historically linked to the emergence of industrial employment. Governments typically make registration at a labor exchange a prerequisite for obtaining unemployment benefits. Thus the political costs of unemployment are smaller when the government has made lesser commitments. The unemployed use different ways to look for work in different European countries. In some countries the local governmental labor exchange offices serve as the primary channel for finding a job.
