Aim of this course is to cast sociological light on Europe’s economic crisis and familiarize students with the employment problems brought by the crisis and the approaches to address them. Theoretical insights come from work and economic sociology and comparative and international political economy. We explore together how various organizations – from the OECD to the EU and the World Bank – devised a range of plans and blueprints to tackle unemployment problems based on the experience of Northern countries; and then how these blueprints perform in the context of South and East European member countries of the European Union to address unemployment in general, but also labor market discrimination on gender grounds and youth unemployment.