ABSTRACT
In 1983 the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development calculated that member countries needed to create 20,000 jobs every day until the end of the decade to return unemployment to its 1979 level. For the western world as a whole, the 1980s are likely to prove worse than the 1930s in terms of average levels of apparently intractable unemployment. Youth unemployment has risen even more spectacularly than adult joblessness. Some young adults receive the support necessary to continue along educational and training routes leading to good jobs. Reeling off other possible solutions leaves leisure as one of the few apparently viable alternatives to persistent unemployment. Unemployment curtails normal leisure activities. Denying that the unemployed are a new leisure class is uncontroversial. Unemployment projects have become an important economic sector, sometimes the sole growth sector, and the real alternative economy in high unemployment areas.
