I am looking for a relatively new paper on modern Western economics. Thank you!

Abstract: Employment is the foundation of people’s livelihood and the basic prerequisite and way for people to improve their living conditions. It has always been a major issue in the economic and social development of various countries. Due to China's large population base, the contradiction between the unlimited supply of labor and the serious shortage of jobs is the most serious problem. Solving the labor and employment problem is of extremely great significance. It not only involves the job placement of job seekers and the vital interests of many families, but also relates to economic development and social stability and harmony. Review the main employment theories of Western economics, put forward the enlightenment of these theories to our country, and then deepen our understanding and reference based on our country's actual situation, and then seek effective ways to solve our country's employment contradictions.

Keywords: employment theory; employment issues; reference

1. Introduction

my country’s economy has been growing rapidly for many years, with the economic growth rate in recent years reaching 10 It is one of the countries with the fastest economic development in the world. However, high economic growth has not brought high employment. Furthermore, the employment situation is closely related to the development speed of the national economy. Generally speaking, certain economic growth brings certain employment growth. However, the contribution of my country's economic growth to employment growth is not very obvious.

In the past ten years or so, China's economy has grown rapidly, but employment growth has been relatively slow. China currently has a large number of rural surplus labor and a large number of university and college graduates who face employment choices and even become unemployed after graduation. situation. It can be said that China's employment pressure is great, the total labor supply exceeds demand, local employment supply is insufficient, and structural contradictions become increasingly prominent.

Therefore, in the face of huge employment pressure, we should broaden our horizons, fully draw on the results of employment theory research in Western economics on the basis of national conditions, and solve the employment problem. For China, It has very important practical significance.

2. Analysis of the Evolution of Western Employment Theory

Employment, a major social and economic issue, has long attracted the attention of Western economists, thus forming unique employment theories. Western economists' long-term research and exploration of employment issues have formed a multi-angle and multi-level employment theory that adapts to the needs of the market economy. Such as the employment theory of the classical economics school, Keynes's full employment theory, the employment theory of the neoclassical comprehensive school, the wage-sticky employment theory of New Keynesianism, etc.

(1) Employment theory of the classical school

Say's law is the cornerstone of the employment theory of the classical school of economics, and its basic connotation is that supply creates demand. Representative economists of this school include Marshall, Pigou, etc. They start from the market structure of perfect competition and believe that product prices and money wages in the market can spontaneously adjust according to market supply and demand conditions. The interaction between labor supply and labor demand determines real wages and employment levels. The amount of employment when supply and demand are balanced is the full employment level. He further believes that as long as there is no wage rigidity, the wage rate can be freely expanded and contracted, and the market mechanism can freely play its regulatory role, so that all available labor resources can be used for production, the labor market can always achieve employment equilibrium, and long-term sustainable Unnatural unemployment cannot exist; only voluntary unemployment and short-term frictional unemployment exist.

They believe that the solution to the unemployment problem is to eliminate the rigidity of money wages so that money wages can change accordingly with market demand. The classical school takes free competition as a prerequisite and advocates market regulation to balance employment, denying the universality of the unemployment problem. However, it is still possible to understand the occurrence of unemployment from another perspective. The unemployment problem is the result of insufficient competition. To solve the unemployment problem, we should first solve the problem of insufficient competition in the labor market.

(2) Keynes’ employment theory

Keynes’ employment theory is based on the principle of effective demand and believes that the amount of employment depends on effective demand. The reason why unemployment continues is due to the "insufficient effective demand" that exists in capitalist societies in general.

That is, when the total supply price and the total demand price reach equilibrium, the total demand is insufficient, which results in more social unemployment, that is, underemployment. Keynesian employment promotion theory actually advocates lowering wages, that is, lowering real wages without lowering nominal wages. But the premise is to expand aggregate demand, because the expansion of aggregate demand will inevitably lead to inflation. The nominal wages of workers will remain unchanged, but the real wages will decrease relatively. In order to achieve full employment, Keynes believed that laissez-faire economic policies must be abandoned, rely on state intervention, and propose demand management policies to achieve the purpose of promoting production and increasing employment.

(3) Employment Theory of the Neoclassical Comprehensive School

In the late 1960s, the economies of major capitalist countries fell into the predicament of "stagflation" one after another, and Keynesian theory failed. Therefore, economists of the neoclassical comprehensive school represented by Tobin, Du Shengbei, etc. proposed the "structural unemployment problem" and tried to use changes in market structure to explain the complications of unemployment and inflation, believing that it was the incompleteness of the micro market. and structural changes causing stagflation. It is concluded that structural unemployment is the structural imbalance of labor supply and demand caused by changes in the economic structure. The existence of structural unemployment will inevitably cause unemployment and job vacancies to coexist. Because strong trade union power makes wages easy to rise but not easy to fall, money wages do not fall despite unemployment in society, and will rise rapidly as long as there are job vacancies. Thus, the coexistence of unemployment and job vacancies translates into the coexistence of unemployment and rising money wages, which in turn translates into the complication of unemployment and inflation. This theory advocates solving the structural unemployment problem from the perspective of employment content or employment structure. For example, the government should guide income policies, that is, the government should take measures to limit the rise of wages and prices to ease inflation; it should focus on improving the labor market and easing the impact of labor market technology. Unemployment caused by structural changes; appropriately modify and improve the unemployment subsidy system to encourage the unemployed to find employment.

(4) New Keynesian wage stickiness employment theory

The new Keynesian labor market theory mainly includes nominal wage stickiness and real wage stickiness. Nominal wage stickiness is due to the existence of long-term labor contracts and staggered wage adjustments. Wages are usually fixed as a result of negotiated contracts between unions and enterprises. During the validity period of the contract, wages cannot be adjusted according to market supply and demand. Even for companies without labor unions and labor contracts, wages will not change easily due to the sticky wages of companies with contracts. Implicit contract theory holds that employees and employers form some kind of informal contract to stabilize income over time, making wages sticky. The reason why implicit contracts lead to unemployment is that under asymmetric information conditions, manufacturers and workers have limited information, which determines the equilibrium contract to be inefficient and under-employment, so workers are usually fired. The efficiency wage theory explains that employers will take the initiative to pay employees high wages to increase employees' production enthusiasm, increase the opportunity cost of job-hopping and laziness, and attract capable and highly skilled talents. The insider-outsider theory points out that because insiders are protected by labor switching costs, they have important bargaining power in wage determination and have strong employment advantages and status. As a result, wage adjustments mainly depend on the employed rather than the unemployed, and involuntary unemployment may occur. Therefore, to solve the unemployment problem, the government must intervene in wage contracts, reduce wage stickiness, increase wage flexibility, and enable wages to be adjusted flexibly and appropriately in a timely manner.

(5) Employment theory of anti-classical economics

The "anti-classical" school advocates abandoning laissez-faire economic policies and learning from the Japanese economic model and the administrative-led market economy model . On the issue of employment, it is emphasized that on the premise of ensuring that enterprises can freely employ people and job seekers can choose their own jobs, on the basis of maintaining the vitality of enterprises and giving full play to the role of market mechanisms, the state shall carry out macro-control and policy guidance on market activities. At the same time, we should establish a labor model with stable employment, smooth labor flow, and small labor contracts and wage gaps.

3. The Enlightenment and Reference of Western Employment Theory to my country

(1) The Enlightenment and Reference of Classical School Employment Theory

First of all, we must solve the segmentation of the labor market problems and employment discrimination, improve the structure of the labor market, and achieve full competition in the labor market. Insufficient competition in my country's current labor market is very prominent. The market is severely divided between urban and rural areas and between regions, and employment discrimination can be seen everywhere. There are serious discriminatory terms in employment recruitment, such as household registration discrimination, regional and dialect discrimination, academic discrimination, gender and age discrimination, and even physical discrimination such as height and appearance, marital status discrimination, criminal experience discrimination, surname discrimination, etc., which have become part of my country's labor force. A normal phenomenon in recruitment. These phenomena have seriously hindered the normal development of my country's labor market, destroyed the fair competition environment in the job market, and led to a huge waste of human resources. Therefore, transparency, fairness, legalization and marketization must be strengthened.

Secondly, in order to regulate my country's labor market, we must strictly implement the labor contract system while using the market price mechanism. At the same time, we must encourage enterprises to fulfill the relevant provisions of the now popular SA8000 social responsibility certification standard and protect labor. the legal rights of the person.

(2) Enlightenment and reference from Keynesian employment theory

Keynesian employment theory emphasizes macroscopic fiscal policy, monetary policy, as well as government intervention in foreign trade and the implementation of tax policies to regulate Employment is a total employment theory. It only examines the changes in total employment and the level of employment in capitalist society, without analyzing the structure of employment. Because it only emphasizes solving the unemployment problem by increasing effective demand, it ignores the management and improvement of labor supply; it only emphasizes the increase in total investment and ignores the employment efficiency of investment and the optimization of investment structure. Therefore, in the process of solving the employment problem through the government's expansion of investment scale, China must pay attention to improving the employment efficiency of investment and invest as much as possible in industries and fields that absorb more labor. In addition, the government should pay attention to the choice of economic growth model, formulate economic growth plans and industrial policies that are conducive to increasing employment, and combine technology-intensive, capital-intensive and labor-intensive growth methods. Therefore, we should implement an employment-first development strategy, choose an "employment-centered" economic growth model, implement employment-based economic policies, optimize the employment structure and industrial structure, and actively develop labor-intensive industries.

(3) The employment theory inspiration and reference of the neoclassical comprehensive school

The neoclassical comprehensive school believes that the government should mainly solve the problem of structural unemployment through labor market and manpower policies. First, take all-round human resource development measures to provide multi-level, multi-field, and various forms of continuing training for the workforce so that workers can master new knowledge and skills in a timely manner; second, vigorously develop employment agencies responsible for information consultation , guidance services, employment introduction and other aspects of work to enable enterprises and job seekers to achieve information symmetry; third, reduce the restrictions on labor force caused by the household registration system, increase the inter-regional flow of labor force, and help solve the regional migration of labor force and enterprises.

Based on the current situation in our country, we should establish and improve the employment education system, actively develop human resources, and comprehensively improve the level of vocational and technical education. Nine-year compulsory education should be universalized for rural school-age children, and vocational education, technical training, and on-the-job training guidance should be strengthened for the labor force, so as to facilitate the timely and effective allocation of production factors and eliminate structural unemployment. Encourage and guide the flow of labor between regions and industries to achieve optimal allocation of resources. Furthermore, establish and improve the labor market