Structural Unemployment and Job Creation: A Case Study from the Western Isles of Scotland

The general problem of structural unemployment has evoked three types of theoretical responses from the body politic of social science. The most ambiguous and least developed set of ideas refers loosely to the notion that structural changes in the economy necessarily lead to structural unemployment as a consequence. This has tended to be rejected by policy makers and indeed the views expressed within this mode of reasoning have been subsumed under discussions that refer either to inefficient labour markets or policy inconsistencies.