Explanations for unemployment in a Western developed economy context remain contested. Competing theories relate particular economic phenomena to types and levels of unemployment, but no theory either explains all unemployment or is accepted uniformly. Recently, selected Protestant economists have proposed the relevance of principles contained in Judeo-Christian thought to a range of contemporary economic matters. How a selection of these principles might be used to partially explain certain forms of Western-type unemployment is illustrated. A normative framework for employment organisation contained in Judeo-Christian thought is presented from recent work of two economist (Protestant) Christian author groups whose approaches have had significant influence in Judeo-Christian circles. Unemployment is explained by differences between features of this framework, and employment organisational characteristics of the real (Western) world. In the third section, implications from the Judeo-Christian framework are compared with selected reasons for frictional and structural unemployment proposed in mainstream economics.
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