We argue that weak containment is an appropriate notion of amenability for inverse semigroups. Given an inverse semigroup S and a homomorphism φ of S onto a group G, we show, under an assumption on ker(φ), that S has weak containment if and only if G is amenable and ker(φ) has weak containment. Using Fell bundle amenability, we find a related result for inverse semigroups with zero. We show tha...

‎Let $S$ be an inverse semigroup with the set of idempotents $E$‎. We prove that the semigroup algebra $ell^{1}(S)$ is always‎ ‎$2n$-weakly module amenable as an $ell^{1}(E)$-module‎, ‎for any‎ ‎$nin mathbb{N}$‎, ‎where $E$ acts on $S$ trivially from the left‎ ‎and by multiplication from the right‎. ‎Our proof is based on a common fixed point property for semigroups‎.