Unemployment -: the lasting challenge of the contemporary socio-economic development

One of the most important social problems of nowadays economic development at the world level is the high rate of unemployment, even in the economically most developed countries, with its negative implications in lasting poverty. It becomes evident that the correlation between economic dynamism and the creation of new labour opportunities is not as evident as in the past. The aim of this paper is to draw on controversial results of the efforts to reduce the rate of unemployment and to solve the social problems connected with it, especially in the USA and the EU, and the different results achieved. In the first part, we pay attention to the changing concept of full employment, in the second, we bring some numbers concerning the rates of unemployment and the evolution of the social situation in countries under consideration, and in the third, we discuss the different aspects of welfare state, especially of flex-security type.