Richard Layard
Professor Lord Richard Layard will be speaking at Beyond Crisis, a TUC / Guardian one-day conference on progressive responses to the financial crisis on 16 Nov in Central London. Register for free tickets at www.tuc.org.uk/beyondcrisis
Previous recessions show that the main danger is the build-up of long-term unemployment. Once people are long-term unemployed, they become increasingly difficult to place back into work. So the build-up of long-term unemployment makes it difficult to have a quick recovery that is not also inflationary.
One significant new policy that could make a big contribution here would be the introduction of a Job Guarantee. This would be a system of placements in temporary jobs, created and paid for by government.
