A NEW CONCEPT OF FULL-EMPLOYMENT

The target of full employment depends upon the goals regarding labour force participation rates, the length of the work week and frictional unemployment. Although nearly all social groups agree that stronger ec onomic growth would contribute most to solving the unemployment proble m, the prospects for a return to the conditions prevailing before 1973 are poor. The article argues that a general saturation, demographic d evelopments and environmental problems may cause bottlenecks for econo mic growth. Important changes in the labour supply and in the sectoral distribution of employment are eroding the full-time, full-year conce pt. In addition, advances in information technology make it imperative to re-examine the old concept of full employment. A new full employme nt concept is proposed that includes a legal right to a basic amount o f employment, i.e. at least part-time employment, combined with a righ t to a (partial) basic income. It is argued that this new full employm ent concept is not only economically efficient, but socially desirable .