economics essay unemployment rate

Economic Synopses

How bad can it be the relationship between gdp growth and the unemployment rate.

Cities and regions across the U.S. are currently shut down due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Many states have already issued, or are considering issuing, stay-at-home orders, under which most non-essential businesses must close and people are urged to stay home. These orders are meant to slow down or stop the spread of COVID-19 by limiting contact between persons and thus reducing opportunities for exposure and infection. With the closing of most non-essential businesses, the output of the U.S. economy will drop significantly and the unemployment rate will increase dramatically. Jobless claims are already flooding in across the U.S. 1

How bad can it be? We have seen several skyrocketing estimates of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates and unemployment rates. One of the newest estimates is from Goldman Sachs, which is revising downward the GDP growth rate from –24 percent to –34 percent, with an unemployment rate of 15 percent. 2  These numbers are unprecedented, and hence it is not easy to impose discipline on them according to past experience.

This essay intends to find a relationship between GDP growth rates and unemployment rates by combining data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The employment requirement table from the BLS provides a detailed estimate of the number of employees required for $1 million of output produced by each industry or sector. In addition, the BEA provides the GDP decomposition across different sectors and industries. So we can use the BLS's employment table together with the BEA's industry-level GDP to calculate a relationship between the GDP growth rate and unemployment rates. This calculation is based on GDP in the second quarter of 2019.

Some industries and sectors are relatively unaffected by the economy's shutdown. Let's assume these sectors' outputs remain unchanged from their levels in 2019. These sectors include farming, government, housing, hospitals, and food stores (such as supermarkets). The GDP for these sectors accounts for 30 percent of total U.S. GDP.

In addition, some sectors are more labor-intensive than others, meaning that the labor requirement of some sectors is higher than that of others to produce the same amount of output. Hence, the unemployment rate is higher (lower) if the GDP reduction comes from more (less) labor-intensive sectors. Hence, as indicated by the figure, there are upper-bound (blue line) and lower-bound (red line) estimates of unemployment rates conditional on the reduction of the GDP growth rate. The upper bound assumes that the GDP reduction (shown on the x -axis) progresses from the most labor-intensive to the least labor-intensive sectors. The lower bound assumes the opposite.  

Given the unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2019 was around 3.6 percent, both lines start with unemployment rates at 3.6 percent, assuming that GDP is unchanged from its level in 2019. If we lost all output from these impacted sectors (up to 70 percent of GDP), then the unemployment rate would dramatically increase to 76 percent. According to this calculation, the unemployment rate estimate of Goldman Sachs seems to be low if the GDP growth rate is –34 percent. More specifically, the unemployment rate should range between 26 percent and 51 percent for a 34 percent reduction in GDP.

My calculation intends to impose some discipline on the wild estimates of upcoming GDP and unemployment rates. Obviously, my calculation has several caveats. First, it is based on the assumption that some sectors are totally unchanged, which account for 30 percent of GDP. It could be argued that employment or output of some businesses (e.g., grocery stores or Amazon) could be higher in response to the economic shutdown. In addition, there are many factors that could alter this rough calculation and potentially bring down the unemployment rate. It is highly possible that the unemployment rate could respond slowly to the rapid decline of GDP because employers anticipate a faster recovery in the third quarter and do not wish to lose their workers. However, the extension of unemployment insurance benefits (as passed by Congress) could encourage layoffs and raise the unemployment rate.

1 Morath, E.; Hilsenrath, J. and Chaney, S. "Record Rise in Unemployment Claims Halts Historic Run of Job Growth." Wall Street Journal , updated March 26, 2020; https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-long-run-of-american-job-growth-has-ended-11585215000 .

2 Cox, J. "Goldman Sees 15 percent Jobless Rate and 34 percent GDP Decline, Followed By the Fastest Recovery in History." CNBC, updated April 1, 2020; https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-update-goldman-sees-15percent-jobless-rate-followed-by-record-rebound.html .

© 2020, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve System.

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5.3 Unemployment

Learning objectives.

• Explain how unemployment is measured in the United States.
• Define three different types of unemployment.
• Define and illustrate graphically what is meant by the natural level of employment. Relate the natural level of employment to the natural rate of unemployment.

For an economy to produce all it can and achieve a solution on its production possibilities curve, the factors of production in the economy must be fully employed. Failure to fully employ these factors leads to a solution inside the production possibilities curve in which society is not achieving the output it is capable of producing.

In thinking about the employment of society’s factors of production, we place special emphasis on labor. The loss of a job can wipe out a household’s entire income; it is a more compelling human problem than, say, unemployed capital, such as a vacant apartment. In measuring unemployment, we thus focus on labor rather than on capital and natural resources.

Measuring Unemployment

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines a person as unemployed if he or she is not working but is looking for and available for work. The labor force is the total number of people working or unemployed. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed.

To estimate the unemployment rate, government surveyors fan out across the country each month to visit roughly 60,000 households. At each of these randomly selected households, the surveyor asks about the employment status of each adult (everyone age 16 or over) who lives there. Many households include more than one adult; the survey gathers information on about roughly 100,000 adults. The surveyor asks if each adult is working. If the answer is yes, the person is counted as employed. If the answer is no, the surveyor asks if that person has looked for work at some time during the previous four weeks and is available for work at the time of the survey. If the answer to that question is yes, the person is counted as unemployed. If the answer is no, that person is not counted as a member of the labor force. Figure 5.4 “Computing the Unemployment Rate” shows the survey’s results for the civilian (nonmilitary) population for February 2012. The unemployment rate is then computed as the number of people unemployed divided by the labor force—the sum of the number of people not working but available and looking for work plus the number of people working. In February 2012, the unemployment rate was 8.3%.

Figure 5.4 Computing the Unemployment Rate

A monthly survey of households divides the civilian adult population into three groups. Those who have jobs are counted as employed; those who do not have jobs but are looking for them and are available for work are counted as unemployed; and those who are not working and are not looking for work are not counted as members of the labor force. The unemployment rate equals the number of people looking for work divided by the sum of the number of people looking for work and the number of people employed. Values are for February 2012. All numbers are in thousands.

There are several difficulties with the survey. The old survey, designed during the 1930s, put the “Are you working?” question differently depending on whether the respondent was a man or woman. A man was asked, “Last week, did you do any work for pay or profit?” A woman was asked, “What were you doing for work last week, keeping house or something else?” Consequently, many women who were looking for paid work stated that they were “keeping house”; those women were not counted as unemployed. The BLS did not get around to fixing the survey—asking women the same question it asked men—until 1994. The first time the new survey question was used, the unemployment rate among women rose by 0.5 percentage point. More than 50 million women are in the labor force; the change added more than a quarter of a million workers to the official count of the unemployed. [1]

The problem of understating unemployment among women has been fixed, but others remain. A worker who has been cut back to part-time work still counts as employed, even if that worker would prefer to work full time. A person who is out of work, would like to work, has looked for work in the past year, and is available for work, but who has given up looking, is considered a discouraged worker. Discouraged workers are not counted as unemployed, but a tally is kept each month of the number of discouraged workers.

The official measures of employment and unemployment can yield unexpected results. For example, when firms expand output, they may be reluctant to hire additional workers until they can be sure the demand for increased output will be sustained. They may respond first by extending the hours of employees previously reduced to part-time work or by asking full-time personnel to work overtime. None of that will increase employment, because people are simply counted as “employed” if they are working, regardless of how much or how little they are working. In addition, an economic expansion may make discouraged workers more optimistic about job prospects, and they may resume their job searches. Engaging in a search makes them unemployed again—and increases unemployment. Thus, an economic expansion may have little effect initially on employment and may even increase unemployment.

Types of Unemployment

Workers may find themselves unemployed for different reasons. Each source of unemployment has quite different implications, not only for the workers it affects but also for public policy.

Figure 5.5 “The Natural Level of Employment” applies the demand and supply model to the labor market. The price of labor is taken as the real wage, which is the nominal wage divided by the price level; the symbol used to represent the real wage is the Greek letter omega, ω. The supply curve is drawn as upward sloping, though steep, to reflect studies showing that the quantity of labor supplied at any one time is nearly fixed. Thus, an increase in the real wage induces a relatively small increase in the quantity of labor supplied. The demand curve shows the quantity of labor demanded at each real wage. The lower the real wage, the greater the quantity of labor firms will demand. In the case shown here, the real wage, ω e , equals the equilibrium solution defined by the intersection of the demand curve D 1 and the supply curve S 1 . The quantity of labor demanded, L e , equals the quantity supplied. The employment level at which the quantity of labor demanded equals the quantity supplied is called the natural level of employment . It is sometimes referred to as full employment.

Figure 5.5 The Natural Level of Employment

The employment level at which the quantity of labor demanded equals the quantity supplied is called the natural level of employment. Here, the natural level of employment is L e , which is achieved at a real wage ω e .

Even if the economy is operating at its natural level of employment, there will still be some unemployment. The rate of unemployment consistent with the natural level of employment is called the natural rate of unemployment . Business cycles may generate additional unemployment. We discuss these various sources of unemployment below.

Frictional Unemployment

Even when the quantity of labor demanded equals the quantity of labor supplied, not all employers and potential workers have found each other. Some workers are looking for jobs, and some employers are looking for workers. During the time it takes to match them up, the workers are unemployed. Unemployment that occurs because it takes time for employers and workers to find each other is called frictional unemployment .

The case of college graduates engaged in job searches is a good example of frictional unemployment. Those who did not land a job while still in school will seek work. Most of them will find jobs, but it will take time. During that time, these new graduates will be unemployed. If information about the labor market were costless, firms and potential workers would instantly know everything they needed to know about each other and there would be no need for searches on the part of workers and firms. There would be no frictional unemployment. But information is costly. Job searches are needed to produce this information, and frictional unemployment exists while the searches continue.

The government may attempt to reduce frictional unemployment by focusing on its source: information costs. Many state agencies, for example, serve as clearinghouses for job market information. They encourage firms seeking workers and workers seeking jobs to register with them. To the extent that such efforts make labor-market information more readily available, they reduce frictional unemployment.

Structural Unemployment

Another reason there can be unemployment even if employment equals its natural level stems from potential mismatches between the skills employers seek and the skills potential workers offer. Every worker is different; every job has its special characteristics and requirements. The qualifications of job seekers may not match those that firms require. Even if the number of employees firms demand equals the number of workers available, people whose qualifications do not satisfy what firms are seeking will find themselves without work. Unemployment that results from a mismatch between worker qualifications and the characteristics employers require is called structural unemployment .

Structural unemployment emerges for several reasons. Technological change may make some skills obsolete or require new ones. The widespread introduction of personal computers since the 1980s, for example, has lowered demand for typists who lacked computer skills.

Structural unemployment can occur if too many or too few workers seek training or education that matches job requirements. Students cannot predict precisely how many jobs there will be in a particular category when they graduate, and they are not likely to know how many of their fellow students are training for these jobs. Structural unemployment can easily occur if students guess wrong about how many workers will be needed or how many will be supplied.

Structural unemployment can also result from geographical mismatches. Economic activity may be booming in one region and slumping in another. It will take time for unemployed workers to relocate and find new jobs. And poor or costly transportation may block some urban residents from obtaining jobs only a few miles away.

Public policy responses to structural unemployment generally focus on job training and education to equip workers with the skills firms demand. The government publishes regional labor-market information, helping to inform unemployed workers of where jobs can be found. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which created a free trade region encompassing Mexico, the United States, and Canada, has created some structural unemployment in the three countries. In the United States, the legislation authorizing the pact also provided for job training programs for displaced U.S. workers.

Although government programs may reduce frictional and structural unemployment, they cannot eliminate it. Information in the labor market will always have a cost, and that cost creates frictional unemployment. An economy with changing demands for goods and services, changing technology, and changing production costs will always have some sectors expanding and others contracting—structural unemployment is inevitable. An economy at its natural level of employment will therefore have frictional and structural unemployment.

Cyclical Unemployment

Of course, the economy may not be operating at its natural level of employment, so unemployment may be above or below its natural level. In a later chapter we will explore what happens when the economy generates employment greater or less than the natural level. Cyclical unemployment is unemployment in excess of the unemployment that exists at the natural level of employment.

Figure 5.6 “Unemployment Rate, 1960–2011” shows the unemployment rate in the United States for the period from 1960 through 2011. We see that it has fluctuated considerably. How much of it corresponds to the natural rate of unemployment varies over time with changing circumstances. For example, in a country with a demographic “bulge” of new entrants into the labor force, frictional unemployment is likely to be high, because it takes the new entrants some time to find their first jobs. This factor alone would raise the natural rate of unemployment. A demographic shift toward more mature workers would lower the natural rate. During recessions, highlighted in Figure 5.6 “Unemployment Rate, 1960–2011” , the part of unemployment that is cyclical unemployment grows. The analysis of fluctuations in the unemployment rate, and the government’s responses to them, will occupy center stage in much of the remainder of this book.

Figure 5.6 Unemployment Rate, 1960–2011

The chart shows the unemployment rate for each year from 1960 to 2011. Recessions are shown as shaded areas.

Source : Economic Report of the President , 2012, Table B-42.

Key Takeaways

• People who are not working but are looking and available for work at any one time are considered unemployed. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed.
• When the labor market is in equilibrium, employment is at the natural level and the unemployment rate equals the natural rate of unemployment.
• Even if employment is at the natural level, the economy will experience frictional and structural unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is unemployment in excess of that associated with the natural level of employment.

Given the data in the table, compute the unemployment rate in Year 1 and in Year 2. Explain why, in this example, both the number of people employed and the unemployment rate increased.

Case in Point: Might Increased Structural Unemployment Explain the “Jobless Recovery” Following the 2001 Recession?

A. Golden – the US$ 3 TRILLION HEIST, – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The U.S. 2001 recession was mild by historical standards, but recovery in terms of increased employment seemed painfully slow in coming. Economists Erica Goshen and Simon Potter at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York think the reason for the slow recovery in jobs may have actually reflected structural changes in the U.S. economy. They argue that during the recession permanent rather than temporary layoffs predominated and that it takes longer for firms to hire workers into new positions than to hire them back into former jobs.

What is their evidence? When the layoff is temporary, the employer “suspends” the job, due to slack demand, and the employee expects to be recalled once demand picks up. With a permanent layoff, the employer eliminates the job. So, they looked at the contribution of temporary layoffs to the unemployment rate during the recent recession compared to the situation in the four recessions before 1990. In the earlier recessions, unemployment from temporary layoffs rose when the economy was shrinking and fell after the economy began to recover. In both the 1991 and 2001 recessions, temporary layoffs were minor. Then, the authors examined job flows in 70 industries. They classified layoffs in an industry as being cyclical in nature if the job losses during the recession were reversed during the recovery but structural if job losses for the industry continued during the recovery. Their analysis revealed that during the recession of the early 1980s, job losses were about evenly split between cyclical and structural changes. In the 1991 recession and then more strongly in the 2001 recession, structural changes dominated. “Most of the industries that lost jobs during the [2001] recession—for example, communications, electronic equipment, and securities and commodities brokers—[were] still losing jobs” in 2003. “The trend revealed . . . is one in which jobs are relocated from some industries to others, not reclaimed by the same industries that lost them earlier.”

The authors suggest three possible reasons for the recent increased role of structural change: (1) The structural decline in some industries could be the result of overexpansion in those industries during the 1990s. The high tech and telecommunications industries in particular could be examples of industries that were overbuilt before the 2001 recession. (2) Improved government policies may have reduced cyclical unemployment. Examination of macroeconomic policy in future chapters will return to this issue. (3) New management strategies to reduce costs may be promoting leaner staffing. For firms adopting such strategies, a recession may provide an opportunity to reorganize the production process permanently and reduce payrolls in the process.

Goshen and Potter point out that, for workers, finding new jobs is harder than simply returning to old ones. For firms, making decisions about the nature of new jobs is time consuming at best. The uncertainty created by the war in Iraq and the imposition of new accounting standards following the “Enron”-like scandals may have further prolonged the creation of new jobs.

Source : Erica L. Goshen and Simon Potter, “Has Structural Change Contributed to a Jobless Recovery?” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance 9, no. 8 (August 2003): 1–7.

Answer to Try It! Problem

In Year 1 the total labor force includes 22 million workers, and so the unemployment rate is 2/22 = 9.1%. In Year 2 the total labor force numbers 23.4 million workers; therefore the unemployment rate is 2.4/23.4 = 10.3%. In this example, both the number of people employed and the unemployment rate rose, because more people (23.4 − 22 = 1.4 million) entered the labor force, of whom 1 million found jobs and 0.4 million were still looking for jobs.

• For a description of the new survey and other changes introduced in the method of counting unemployment, see Janet L. Norwood and Judith M. Tanur, “Unemployment Measures for the Nineties,” Public Opinion Quarterly 58, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 277–94. ↵

Principles of Macroeconomics Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Solutions to unemployment.

The report suggests the real unemployment level is higher because there are many people unemployed but not entitled to unemployment benefits. (see also: What is true level of unemployment in UK )

In September, the employment rate fell to 72% and the official unemployment rate rose to 8.0%

• National Statistics Online
• 0.5% interest rates
• expansionary fiscal policy
• Quantitative easing.
• Reducing unemployment using monetary policy
• Reducing unemployment in Spain
• Reducing Natural Rate of Unemployment

4 comments:

Hi. Would just like confirmation. Isn't that minimum wage was first introduced in April 1999 instead of 1997? Thanks

yes, thanks 1999

iwould like to know who write these theories??was it developed by someone?? if so in which year and wot is the name of the person??

The writer of the post is me, you can see at bottom of post. Author and date

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Unemployment and Policy Trade-Offs (Revision Essay Plan)

Last updated 4 May 2019

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Here is a revision essay plan on this title: “Evaluate the view that falling unemployment inevitably has trade-offs with other macroeconomic objectives. Discuss with reference to a country or countries of your choice.”

KAA Point 1

Falling U – may cause an acceleration in wage inflation in labour market – leads to a rise in cost-push and demand-pull inflationary pressures – this is a trade-off suggested by the short-run Phillips Curve analysis. Bargaining power of workers rises + skilled labour shortages & increased demand for raw materials and components can all drive variable costs higher – inward shift of SRAS, leading to a higher rate of inflation.

EVAL Point 1

Not automatic that inflation will rise. Improved supply-side flexibility of the labour market might have caused a fall in the NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) – this means that U can fall further without threatening rising wage inflation. External factors (e.g. lower commodity prices, impact of global competition) can also act as off-setting factors even if wages are rising more quickly.

KAA Point 2

Falling U – leads to rising real wages – increased household incomes – causes surge in demand for imports of goods and services – especially if the marginal propensity to import is high – in the absence of offsetting factors, a rise in M will lead to a worsening of the current account of the BoP. E.g. unemployment in UK now less than 4%, in 2016 the UK ran a record current account deficit of more than 5% of GDP.

EVAL Point 2

Falling U might be result of improved supply-side performance e.g. increased labour productivity which makes UK export industries more competitive. Or export sales might have grown because of a depreciation of the exchange rate (e.g. 2016) which (assuming Marshall-Lerner condition holds) will improve the net trade balance whilst also stimulating output and employment in sectors such as cars and tourism.

FINAL CONCLUSION

Phillips Curve for the UK seems to have flattened i.e. improving trade-off between unemployment and inflation. UK might be able to get close to full-employment and stay within the 2% inflation target. But weak productivity and low investment (17% of GDP) mean that strong GDP growth often associated with a worsening of the external trade accounts.

• Phillips Curve

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Defining the Unemployment Rate

Course outline.

Principles of Economics Macroeconomics

The Wealth of Nations and Economic Growth

Growth, capital accumulation, and the economics of ideas, savings, investment, and the financial system, unemployment and labor force participation, inflation and quantity theory of money, business fluctuations, business cycle theories, monetary policy and the federal reserve, fiscal policy.

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How is unemployment defined in the United States?

If someone has a job, they’re defined as “employed.” But does that mean that everyone without a job is unemployed? Not exactly.

A minor without a job isn’t unemployed. Someone who has been incarcerated also isn’t counted. A retiree, too, does not count toward the unemployment rate.

For the official statistics, you have to meet quite a few criteria to be considered unemployed in the U.S. For instance, if you’re without a job, but have actively looked for work in the past four weeks, you are considered unemployed.

In times of recession, when people are faced with long-term unemployment and lots of discouragement, the official rate might not count some of the people that you would otherwise consider unemployed.

This video will give you a clear picture of how the unemployment rate is defined and build a foundation for further understanding this important facet of labor markets.

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Civilian Unemployment Rate

FRED | Data

Keeping the Biggest Secret in the US Economy

Planet Money | Podcast

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Let's begin today by taking a look at the unemployment rate in the United States. If we Google "unemployment rate United States FRED," we'll get this graph from the St. Louis Federal Reserve economic database. We can see from the graph that the unemployment rate fluctuates. Since 1950, it's averaged about 6% per year, but it dipped below 3% once, and it had highs of 10.8% in December of 1982, and almost as high, 10%, in October of 2009, the Great Recession.

Not surprisingly, the unemployment rate increases during recessions, and those are shown by the shaded areas. Perhaps a little bit more surprisingly, the unemployment rate is never zero. Not even in a boom. In a growing economy, lots of things are changing. And even as some firms are expanding, others are shutting down. Workers -- they're moving about, they're entering the work force, they're looking for new jobs and so forth. We'll talk more about that in an upcoming video.

Now let's look at how unemployment is defined. A person with a job is employed. But in the official definition, not everyone without a job is unemployed. Is a six-year-old unemployed? Is a prisoner unemployed? What about a retiree? In each of these cases, the official answer is no. A person is counted as unemployed only if they're an adult, non-institutionalized civilian without a job, and actively looking for work. The most important part of this definition is that to be considered unemployed, a person must be out of a job, but actively looking for work. And that means that they must have taken some action to find a job in the last four weeks. The unemployment rate is the number of people who are unemployed divided by the number of people in the civilian labor force -- the employed plus the unemployed.

Let's add the civilian labor force and the number of unemployed people to our graph to see all of these relationships, and get an idea of the magnitudes. We can see, for example, that in February of 2015, there were 157 million people in the labor force. Of these, 5.5% were unemployed, which means that there were 8.6 million unemployed people. Now in case you don't want to check those calculations, let's make it easy. Let's go to January of 1978. At that time there were about 100 million people in the labor force. The unemployment rate was 6.4%, and there were 6.4 million people unemployed, just as expected.

In the next video, we're going to look at a common criticism of the unemployment rate: Is unemployment undercounted ? Is there a conspiracy to undercount the unemployment rate?

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Policies for reducing unemployment

There are two main strategies for reducing unemployment –

• Demand side policies to reduce demand-deficient unemployment (unemployment caused by recession)
• Supply side policies to reduce structural unemployment / (the natural rate of unemployment )

A quick list of policies to reduce unemployment

• Monetary policy – cutting interest rates to boost aggregate demand (AD)
• Fiscal policy – cutting taxes to boost AD.
• Education and training to help reduce structural unemployment.
• Geographical subsidies to encourage firms to invest in depressed areas.
• Lower minimum wage to reduce real wage unemployment.
• More flexible labour markets, to make it easier to hire and fire workers.

Video summary

Demand side policies

Demand side policies are critical when there is a recession and rise in cyclical unemployment. (e.g. after 1991/92 recession and after 2008 recession)

1. Fiscal Policy

Fiscal policy can decrease unemployment by helping to increase aggregate demand and the rate of economic growth. The government will need to pursue expansionary fiscal policy; this involves cutting taxes and increasing government spending. Lower taxes increase disposable income (e.g. VAT cut to 15% in 2008) and therefore help to increase consumption, leading to higher aggregate demand (AD).

With an increase in AD, there will be an increase in Real GDP (as long as there is spare capacity in the economy.) If firms produce more, there will be an increase in demand for workers and therefore lower demand-deficient unemployment. Also, with higher aggregate demand and strong economic growth, fewer firms will go bankrupt meaning fewer job losses.

Keynes was an active advocate of expansionary fiscal policy during a prolonged recession. He argues that in a recession, resources (both capital and labour) are idle. Therefore the government should intervene and create additional demand to reduce unemployment.

Impact of Higher AD on Economy

This shows an increase in AD causing higher real GDP. The increase in output leads to firms needing more workers.

• It depends on other components of AD. e.g. if confidence is low, cutting taxes may not increase consumer spending because people prefer to save. Also, people may not spend tax cuts, if they will soon be reversed.
• Fiscal policy may have time lags. E.g., a decision to increase government spending may take a long time to affect aggregated demand (AD).
• If the economy is close to full capacity, an increase in AD will only cause inflation. Expansionary fiscal policy will only reduce unemployment if there is an output gap.
• Expansionary fiscal policy will require higher government borrowing – this may not be possible for countries with high levels of debt, and rising bond yields.
• In the long run, expansionary fiscal policy may cause crowding out, i.e. the government increase spending but because they borrow from the private sector, they have less to spend, and therefore AD doesn’t increase. However, Keynesians argue crowding out will not occur in a liquidity trap .

2. Monetary policy

Monetary policy would involve cutting interest rates. Lower rates decrease the cost of borrowing and encourage people to spend and invest. This increases AD and should also help to increase GDP and reduce demand deficient unemployment.

Also, lower interest rates will reduce exchange rate and make exports more competitive.

In some cases, lower interest rates may be ineffective in boosting demand. In this case, Central Banks may resort to Quantitative easing. This is an attempt to increase the money supply and boost aggregate demand. See: Quantitative easing.

• Similar problems to fiscal policy. e.g. it depends on other components of AD.
• Lower interest rates may not help boost spending if banks are still reluctant to lend.
• Demand side policies can contribute to reducing demand deficient unemployment e.g. in a recession. However, they cannot reduce supply-side unemployment. Therefore, their effectiveness depends on the type of unemployment that occurs.

Supply side policies for reducing unemployment

Supply side policies deal with more micro-economic issues. They don’t aim to boost overall aggregate demand but seek to overcome imperfections in the labour market and reduce unemployment caused by supply side factors. Supply side unemployment includes:

• Classical (real wage)

Policies to reduce supply-side unemployment

1. Education and training . The aim is to give the long-term unemployed new skills which enable them to find jobs in developing industries, e.g. retrain unemployed steel workers to have basic I.T. skills which help them find work in the service sector. – However, despite providing education and training schemes, the unemployed may be unable or unwilling to learn new skills. At best it will take several years to reduce unemployment.

2. Reduce the power of trades unions . If unions can bargain for wages above the market clearing level, they will cause real wage unemployment. In this case reducing the influence of trades unions (or reducing Minimum wages) will help solve this real wage unemployment.

3. Employment subsidies . Firms could be given tax breaks or subsidies for taking on long-term unemployed. This helps give them new confidence and on the job training. However, it will be quite expensive, and it may encourage firms to just replace current workers with the long-term unemployment to benefit from the tax breaks.

4. Improve labour market flexibility . It is argued that higher structural rates of unemployment in Europe is due to restrictive labour markets which discourage firms from employing workers in the first place. For example, abolishing maximum working weeks and making it easier to hire and fire workers may encourage more job creation. However, increased labour market flexibility could cause a rise in temporary employment and greater job insecurity.

5. Stricter benefit requirements . Governments could take a more pro-active role in making the unemployed accept a job or risk losing benefits. After a certain period, the government could guarantee a public sector job (e.g. cleaning streets). This could significantly reduce unemployment. However, it may mean the government end up employing thousands of people in unproductive tasks which is very expensive. Also, if you make it difficult to claim benefits, you may reduce the claimant count, but not the International Labour force survey. See: measures of unemployment

6. Improved geographical mobility . Often unemployed is more concentrated in certain regions. To overcome this geographical unemployment, the government could give tax breaks to firms who set up in depressed areas. Alternatively, they can provide financial assistance to unemployed workers who move to areas with high employment. (e.g. help with renting in London)

7. Maximum working week . It has been suggested a maximum working week of (for example 35 hours) would lead to firms needing to hire more workers and reduce unemployment.

• However, a maximum working week may increase a firms costs and therefore they are not willing to hire more. Also, there is no certainty a firm will respond to a cut in hours by employing more – they may try to increase productivity. Those with the wrong skills will still face the same problem.

Video on policies to reduce unemployment

• Causes of Unemployment
• The unemployment problem
• Inflation v Unemployment

47 thoughts on “Policies for reducing unemployment”

yep, in a way I agree that lowering the minimum wage would just lead to more people not working and getting money of the government as an alternative. This results in a higher unemployment rate, as well as money the government could be spending on medicine being spend on people who don’t have jobs seeing as its not worth working because the money you make is too low.

My suggestion is that as South Africans we are not working 24_7 .If all government departments eg clinics,police,our courts some municipal departments like refuse removal,water and sewer,revenue department can work shifts that will keep all this places open in all municipalities and your Pick and pays and other will also follow suit.Taxis will also be forced to employ more drivers for nightshift. Big companies Eskom and mines to generate own electricity to help the grid by making manual electric plants like tandem bicycle that can drive turbines like old bicycle light.Its possible just need engineers to figure out how.But those manual generators can give people employment 24/7 as well.

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Economics: Unemployment, Its Causes and Types

This essay sample explores solutions, types, and causes of unemployment. Read it to get ideas for your essay about unemployment.

Unemployment Essay Introduction

Unemployment, types of unemployment, causes of unemployment, conclusion for unemployment essay.

Unemployment has become a major problem in almost every society. The challenges posed by unemployment are both social and economical in nature. Under normal circumstances, unemployment leads to despondency since a section of society lacks ways of earning a living.

This affects not only the economic status of the society but also the political and social aspects. It is against this background that a lot of efforts are put in place so as to address the issue of unemployment. Job creation is one sure way of ensuring that unemployment is under control.

This involves concerted efforts to bring about opportunities to work through which income can be generated. However, unemployment is of different types, and a better understanding of the same is crucial in the event of finding a meaningful solution.

Furthermore, unemployment is caused by several factors which are responsible for the whole situation. The aim of this paper is to navigate through the light of unemployment, thoroughly analyzing the causes and types of the same.

Unemployment refers to a situation in which qualified people are seeking employment but remain unemployed. This is primarily due to the scarcity of job opportunities or other different causes. Unemployment, therefore, leads to a lack of a source of income, thus affecting the economic condition of the society. Unemployment takes different forms and shapes (Harris, 2001).

The condition of unemployment differs from society to society, depending on the factors responsible for the situation. This brings out the fact that unemployment does not occur in a uniform manner; it rather takes different forms depending on the various forces in the social, economic, and political arenas.

Unemployment is a major problem that needs to be addressed by all means. However, a better understanding of the causes and types of unemployment is necessary for the event of finding an appropriate solution to the whole situation.

Unemployment occurs in different forms. Under normal circumstances, the type of unemployment is denoted by the nature of factors that have brought about the situation. As a result, unemployment is categorized by forces that play a role in the creation of the situation (Hooks 2003).

Another important factor in the categorization of unemployment is the manner in which the situation occurs and for how long it occurs. In such a situation, certain forms of unemployment tend to be repetitive in nature, while others only take place once.

The seriousness of the unemployment problem also forms a good basis for its categorization. Under normal circumstances, unemployment is categorized in economic terms. Therefore the dynamics of economics play an important role in the whole scenario.

There are several types of unemployment that occur in different forms and are brought about by different situations and circumstances. The following are the types of unemployment;

• Hidden unemployment
• Cyclical unemployment
• Seasonal unemployment
• Long-term unemployment
• Underemployment
• Hardcore unemployment
• Structural unemployment
• Frictional unemployment

Hidden unemployment refers to cases of unemployment that are not represented in the official records of unemployment. This happens since many cases of unemployment are unreported, and statistics given by government agencies don’t represent them. Seasonal unemployment, on the other hand, refers to those jobs that are seasonal in nature.

These kinds of jobs only operate during certain times and not others (Abbot 2010). During the seasons, when the jobs are not on, the workers are considered unemployed. When there are certain structural changes in the status of the economy, there are kinds of changes that take place, which lead to loss of jobs and a reduction of opportunities for work.

This situation is referred to as structural unemployment. It is brought about by structural changes in the economy. Unemployment caused by personal reasons is called hardcore unemployment.

These reasons might be mental, psychological, or physical in nature. Individuals who engage in two different careers can find themselves unemployed due to the nature of their occupation. This kind of unemployment is called frictional unemployment. It is brought about by the conflict between two different jobs rendering people unemployed.

Unemployment is caused by several factors, and there is no single factor that is responsible for unemployment. As a result, there are a number of factors that combine to bring about a lack of opportunities and the fact of qualified people remaining unemployed (Symes 1995).

Fundamentally the causes of unemployment are economic in nature. As such, the plight of unemployment is brought about by factors that are inherently economic in nature. Economic forces and activities, to a large extent, determine the nature and cause of most unemployment problems. Also, factors that deal with labor and personnel are responsible for a large number of unemployment cases.

The following are causes of unemployment;

• Economic growth
• Microeconomic policies
• Constraints in economic growth

The process of economic growth has a lot of relevance to the plight of unemployment. Under normal circumstances, unemployment is an economic problem. The forces that bring about unemployment are economic in nature.

Economic growth, for instance, has a lot of significance to the whole situation of unemployment. The level of economic activity prevailing at any given moment has a lot of significance on the state of unemployment at the time.

During the process of economic growth, there is a trend that follows; this normally involves a decrease in employment opportunities. This automatically leads to a rise in the levels of unemployment. Therefore economic growth has a negative effect on the rate of unemployment in the economy. Technology also leads to high levels of unemployment; this is primarily due to the replacement of humans with machines.

With the increase in the innovation of technology, more tasks are performed by machines making it unnecessary to employ people. This makes people lose their jobs to machines since it becomes cheaper to use machines than employ people. Another factor in the same vein of technology is the use of the capital intensive mechanism. As a result, the jobs that can be performed by people are done by machines (Stretton 1999).

The role played by policies of microeconomic nature in the creation of unemployment in society cannot be underestimated. These policies normally lead to a sudden change in the economic environment making certain adjustments that lead to unemployment.

This happens when new policies are set out in place. During the initial times of implementation, the economic environment responds with fear and panic, thus causing a sudden disappearance of opportunities for career.

Constraints in economic growth lead to uncertainty among various economic players making the chances of unemployment to reduce. There is usually rampant unemployment during times of economic uncertainty. Two reasons, first, most companies won’t employ anyone during the times of economic constraints. Secondly, many companies lay off their staff during times of slackness and low economic activity.

Unemployment is a problem that is economic in nature. Most of the factors that bring about unemployment have an economic connotation. However, the effects of unemployment go beyond the economic arena. There are several types of unemployment that are grouped according to various factors that cause the plight.

Furthermore, unemployment is not caused by one single factor; there are several forces that cause unemployment in different ways. The paper has taken an analytical look at the whole concept of unemployment. Priority has been given to the causes and types of unemployment.

The paper thus found out that unemployment is caused by various forces that are economical, social, and political in nature. At the same time, the paper found out that there is a different categorization of unemployment. This is normally done with the purpose of defining the essence of the unemployment problem in question.

Abbot, L. (2010). Theories of the Labour Market and Employment: A Review. Washington: Industrial Systems Research.

Harris, N. (2001). Business economics: theory and application. London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Hooks, J. (2003). Economics: fundamentals for financial services providers. Washington: Kogan Page Publishers.

Stretton, H. (1999). Economics: a new introduction . Washington: Pluto Press.

Symes, V. (1995). Unemployment in Europe: problems and policies. New York: Routledge.

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StudyCorgi. (2020, January 12). Economics: Unemployment, Its Causes and Types. https://studycorgi.com/economics-unemployment-its-causes-and-types/

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Unemployment Essay

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• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Unemployment can be defined as the condition where citizens of a country are jobless and have in the recent past been involved in searching work without a success. Unemployment rate can be defined as the prevalence of unemployment opportunities in a country. The unemployment index is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by the number of individuals in the labour force (Arestis & John 15).

I have chosen the unemployment situation because of the increasing and prevalent unemployment rates in various countries.

Recent statistics indicate that, the rate of unemployment is on the increase and there is a lot of information to cover the complex area of unemployment. There are various reasons which cause unemployment in a country. The following are some of the reasons that cause unemployment rate in a country (Arestis & John 20).

• Advances in new technologies. New technologies to a large extent replace the human labour force which renders most human beings as unemployed.
• Population increase. The level of unemployment is believed to go up as population in a country increases. Increase in population leads to an increased pressure on the available resources. These limited resources are few and cannot accommodate the increasing demands of the population
• National policies. Some countries have stringent national policies that favour the increase in the unemployment levels in a country. These national policies will always restrict the participation of certain gender groups in specific employment sectors. For example, some countries restricts the participation of women in many employment sectors especially the building, and construction sector.
• Political environments also play a major role towards increasing the rate of unemployment. Political environments that increase the rate of unemployment are quite dominant especially in the developing countries. Such environments will enhance political vices such as nepotism and corruption which undermines the possibility of having fair distribution of employment opportunities to citizens.
• Economic depression. Economic depression is a form of economic recession that is long-term which is characterized by a downturn in the various economic activities in a country.

In analyzing this complex situation of unemployment, it is of vital importance to consider the application of various system analyzing tools such as “tools, methods, methodology and many techniques”. This will make the analysis of the complex situation being analyzed to be understood easily.

In my research I will analyze the complex process of unemployment with the aim of creating a sustainable environment in the employment sector.

The research will encompass the various causes of unemployment rates, the challenges being encountered in the process of reducing unemployment rates. The research will critically analyze the various types of unemployment and, the mechanisms which can be adopted in order to reduce the prevalent rates of unemployment.

Unemployment is a complex problem facing many countries presently. The process of reducing unemployment rates can be a daunting process fraught with disappointments. As a summary of the major findings of the research, the major cause of unemployment is lack of information among citizens, and poor governance policies in a country (Arestis & John 30).

Various citizens are ignorant on how to effectively utilize the available natural and human resources to create employment. They lack a sense of creativity which could possibly create employment opportunities. Also, most citizens are ignorant on how to effectively participate in democratic governance process.

This ignorance eventually creates autocratic governance regimes which fosters nepotism and corruption. These political vices reduce the availability of employment opportunities in a country, leading to unemployment (Arestis & John 15).

One key requirement of a good system practitioner is the ability of the system practitioner to apply the various models, methods and theories of system practitioner into the real life.

My undertaking of this project will assist me to apply the various system practitioner concepts learnt in class to the real life complex scenario of unemployment (Jacques & Stephen, 1994, pg. 21). In analyzing the complexity associated with unemployment, I will consider the various theories of complex management which I will discuss along with the development of this paper.

Applying hard systems method

Before analyzing the complex process of unemployment, it is important to make a distinction between hard and soft systems. Hard systems can be defined as those problems that deal with the “how” questions. For example, the question of how to increase the rate of employment is an example of a hard problem.

A hard problem is always characterized by the fact that there is a distinct solution, and there are a number of defined goals that are well defined which should be accomplished. On the other hand, a soft system is a problem that encompasses both the “how” and “what” questions (Jacques & Stephen, 1994, pg. 27)

The complex process of unemployment could be well analyzed using the hard system method of approach. The hard system method tries to analyze a complex problem through many stages which will be discussed in this paper.

There are various advantages that are associated with the use of the hard system methodology of concept analysis. The following are some of the advantages of using the hard system method (Jacques & Stephen, 1994, pg. 35)

• It provides a deeper understanding and analysis of the problem of unemployment and answers the question of how to mitigate the unemployment problem.
• Hard system analysis provides answers to other complex problems related to unemployment like how to use technology to increase the rate of employment.

The following diagram indicates the application of hard system in the analysis of unemployment.

The above diagram indicates the various processes that will be undertaken in the analysis of the unemployment problem.

Stage 1. System description

System description will always indicate the current position and status of the problem being analyzed. Currently we are experiencing a high rate of unemployment which is characterized by the increasing population rate. The world population is estimated at 7 billion people.

The available limited employment resources are not sufficient to carter for the demands of the 7 billion individuals. This eventually piles up pressure on the resources that could be used to create employment opportunities, hence leading to an increased level of unemployment (Steger, Maznevski & Wolfgang 39).

The following table illustrates the world population by continent by 2011.

The alarming increase in the level of unemployment creates a need for analyzing the complex concept of unemployment with the aim of unmasking the strategies to be adopted in order to reduce unemployment rates (Arestis & John 55).

The following table indicates the world top ten countries by unemployment rate

The above data directly underpins the fact that unemployment is a complex prevalent issue. If much is not done to contain the issue, then, the issue will become out of control and cause adverse effects to the limited human, and natural resources available (Arestis & John 60).

Stage 2. Identification of constraints and objectives

The main objective of this sturdy is to identify the various causes of unemployment and any relevant measure that can be adopted to mitigate the problem of unemployment. Also, the sturdy is aimed at identifying the reasons as to why there is a huge gap between the unemployment rates in developed countries and the developing countries (Steger, Maznevski & Wolfgang 40).

The major projected constrain is the political environments and government policies and ideologies governing the utilization of resources, and the creation of employment opportunities.

Stage 3. Generation of routes to objectives

• Governments and relevant stakeholders should ensure that, there is gender equity and equality in the allocation of employment opportunities.
• Governments should adopt various strategies that will involve the citizens in the creation of employment opportunity for self-sustainability. A self-sustenance economy should be adopted which can be achieved through promotion of innovation and creativity.
• Removal of political and governance ideologies that promote nepotism, and corruption.
• Creation of public awareness and increased public participation in the governance process.

Stage 4. Formulating measures for performance

Measures of performance will measure to what extent has the research objectives been met. In order to measure the performance, the unemployment index will be recorded for the next five years after the activities stipulated in the routes to objectives have been undertaken.

The unemployment index obtained will then be compared to unemployment index done before undertaking this research. The comparison will give vital information as to whether there is been an improvement in the unemployment index after the adoption of the routes to objectives (Zimmer & Jake 44).

Stage 5. Modeling

The modeling process will involve those activities that are geared towards determining the outcomes of the research (Zimmer & Jake 51). In order to identify the outcomes, a survey will be carried out after every year for the next five years to find out the rate of unemployment.

This will be calculated by dividing the number of employed individuals by the number of unemployed individuals. The index obtained will then be compared in order to determine whether there is an improvement or a decline in the unemployment rate (Arestis & John 31).

Stage 6. Evaluation

The evaluation stage is the most important stage in the analysis of the complex issue. Evaluation will involve the analysis of the outcomes obtained from the modelling stage. The evaluation will involve the analysis of the disparities that will be recorded in the research.

This will involve the sturdy of what factors are causing the disparity and how to re-align and reconfigure the process routes in order to achieve the research objectives. Evaluation process might also include the prototyping technique where the routes are tested, and retested in order to determine their viability before being fully implemented (Zimmer & Jake 71).

Stage 7. Selecting the best routes to objectives

After the evaluation process, the best route towards achieving the objectives should be selected. The route chosen should ensure that the research objectives have been met to a large extent. In the analysis of unemployment, the best route that was identified was the creation of awareness and involving the individuals in the governance process (Steger, Maznevski & Wolfgang 59).

This route will increase the level of democracy in a country hence creating equal employment opportunities for both women and men. Also, creating public awareness will ensure that citizens are well equipped with knowledge of how to effective utilize resources and create employment opportunities.

Also, public participation in the governance process will ensure that the governance policies adopted foster democracy which is a key ingredient towards reducing the rate of unemployment (Arestis & John 75).

Stage 8. Implementation of the selected routes

The implementation process will involve the process of adopting and enrolling the best selected route. In the case of unemployment, the selected route of creating awareness and increasing public participation in the governance process will be adopted.

Creating awareness will involve conducting of seminars to enlighten the public on how to effectively use the available resources, and how to create employment opportunities through innovation (Steger, Maznevski & Wolfgang 69).

Public participation in the process of policy formulation will be achieved through promotion of civic education among citizens on how to carefully vote and chose leaders with integrity.

Also, the civic education will be aimed at increasing public participation in government related projects, and governance processes starting from the grassroots government structures. Also, the civic education will aim at educating citizens on how they can get access to public funds and amenities.

Stakeholders involved

Stakeholders can be described as those people who are in one way or the other affected by the problem of unemployment. Also, stakeholders in one way or the other affect the entire problem of unemployment. Stakeholders can negatively or positively be affected by the unemployment concept.

On the other hand, stakeholders can positively or negatively influence the prevalence of unemployment concept (Jacques & Stephen, 1994, pg. 75)

The following tables indicates a summary of the how stakeholders are affected/affect the unemployment concept

Ethicality statement

As a system practitioner I fully commit myself to the various ethical guidelines that should be followed whenever undertaking any research work. I will consider the following ethical consideration I my research undertaking:

• The data collected will be solely used for the purpose of the research, and no client data will be used for any other purposes not stipulated in the research.
• The clients will be fully informed on the purpose of the research, and the duration the research is going to take.
• The participation of subjects in the research will be voluntary, and out of consent. Where approval is required, then, the relevant approving bodies will be sought.

Conclusion and recommendations

In conclusion, it is evident from the research that unemployment is a complex issue that can be solved abstractly. With the increasing levels of unemployment, much has to be done in order to mitigate and reduce the rate of unemployment. This calls for public awareness, and participation in the entire process of creating employment. Such a complex issue should not be entrusted in the hands of greedy and selfish leaders.

Project log

The entire project will be spread over a period of six weeks with the first two weeks dealing with the preparation process and the last four weeks dealing with the data collection and analysis. The five weeks have been broken into three phases.

The following table indicates the project log phases.

Week 1 and week 2

During the first two weeks, I was involved in the process of consulting my colleagues and tutor to try and sought out their opinion about the topic. This gave a chance to discuss the various available methodologies that could be used in the sturdy. Also, this gave a chance to identify whether unemployment is a complex process or not.

Also, during the first week, I was able to undertake a literature review in order to determine what other researchers have done about the unemployment concept. The literature review sufficed me with relevant information about the unemployment concept.

Also, the information obtained was useful in avoiding mistakes done by previous researchers. The literature review involved researching the relevant literature materials like the internet, books, journals, and articles. I also obtained a chance of visiting various libraries in order to find out more information about the unemployment concept.

Week 3, 4 and 5

Most of the research work was conducted during the third, fourth and the fifth week. Various data was collected about the unemployment rate of individuals. Also, clients were required to fill in a survey form and a questionnaire in order to determine the causes of unemployment. Also, the subjects were required to give their individual opinions about what could be done in order to reduce the rate of unemployment.

Various data collections methods were employed in the process of data collection which includes the following methods; survey forms, questionnaires, and interviews.

Subjects were required to fill in questionnaires which sought to find out what were the causes of unemployment and what could be done to reduce the unemployment rates. Subjects were also required to fill in a survey form to determine whether the government is doing much to contain the problem of unemployment.

A series of interviews were also conducted with the aim of finding more first-hand information about the problem of unemployment. A total of three interviews were conducted during the entire period of the project. The following are the interviews that were conducted during the time of research.

The sixth week of the research was purely dedicated to data analysis and the sturdy of the findings. The data collected was analyzed and compared to previous data that was collected by other researchers on the same subject. The data analysis stage involved the application of the hard system on the complex process of unemployment. Various stages of the hard system methodology were studied in respect to unemployment.

Also, the compilation of the results obtained was done on the sixth week. This was the last week of the project undertaking, and due consultation was made to ensure that the project is up to date and with the relevant requirements.

I also, spent some time with my project supervisor in order to discuss the application of TMA in the complex process of unemployment. My supervisor advice helped a lot in the development of the project in the sense that, the information I was given largely assisted in the ensuring the realization of the research objectives.

Summary of the project log

In this section of the report, I will cover a brief summary of what I have been able to undertake during my six weeks of undertaking the project.

Undertaking the T306 course has largely helped build more on the concept that I learnt in my previous course, T205-An approach to system thinking. Managing complexity has equipped me with knowledge of how to apply various managing complexity theories, systems, and methodology in analyzing complex situations.

During the first five weeks of my project undertaking, I was extensively involved in the process of data collection and literature review. This introduced me to a number of literature and concept regarding the problem of unemployment. It also introduced me to a wide range of knowledge regarding data collection methods like interviews, questionnaires, and surveys.

The last week of the project was dedicated to data analysis. During this period of data analysis, various data analysis techniques were employed to analyze the data. This introduced me to a wide range of scientific data analysis methods of analyzing data.

Client report

The major client in the above research is the unemployed citizen or individual. They are the ones who are largely affected by the rising unemployment rate. Most of the unemployed individuals or citizens have the common ideology that it is the responsibility of government and private sectors to create employment.

Such an ideology is wrong because the process of creating employment opportunities is neither a government responsibility nor the responsibility of the private sector. It is a collective responsibility that has to be done by the collaboration of the citizens, the private sector, and the government.

There are various forms of employment that currently exists. One can be self employed which means that, they are their own employers. This form of employment fosters renovation and a spirit of entrepreneurship among citizens. This spirit eventually promotes innovation and creativity which eventually creates employment opportunities.

Also, citizens should be made to understand that, democracy plays a major role towards creation of employment opportunities. Democracy ensures accountability and transparency towards the use of resources, hence creating avenues for more employment opportunities. On the other hand, corruption, nepotism, and violence lead to misuse of resources which eventually blocks avenues for creating employment opportunities.

In order to reduce the adverse effects associated with unemployment, citizens should engage in innovation and creative activities. This will enhance the proper utilization of resources and eventually creating employment opportunities. One major desirable aspect of a good economy is the ability to be self sustainable.

A self sustainable economy will ensure that citizens have the services and products they require. One way of ensuring a self sustaining economy is by having citizens engage in innovative and creative activities. Such activities will lead to specialization, and creation of more job, and employment opportunities.

Works Cited

Arestis, Philip & McCombie, John. Unemployment: Past and Present . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.

Jaques, Elliott, and Stephen, Clement. Executive Leadership: A Practical Guide to Managing Complexity . Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1994. Print.

Steger, Ulrich & Maznevski, Martha & Wolfgang, Amann. Managing Complexity in Global Organizations . Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, 2007. Print.

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"Unemployment." IvyPanda , 21 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/unemployment-essay/.

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Bibliography

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The Best Essay on Unemployment | Macroeconomics

Here is an essay on ‘Unemployment’ for class 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Unemployment’ especially written for school and college students.

Unemployment can be divided into different types according to the reasons for its occurrence. For example, there is frictional unemployment, which arises when a person is temporarily unemployed while moving between jobs. Similarly, there is structural unemployment, when people find their skills are not employable because they have become technologically redundant or there is no demand for them in certain regions of the country where they live.

These types of unemployment are easy to explain. By comparison, there is an enduring controversy associated with the attempts to unravel what, if any, are the differences between classical and Keynesian unemployment. The classical economists believed in the Say’s Law of Markets and in wage-price flexibility. The operation of the Say’s Law (which states that demand creates its own supply) and sufficient wage-price flexibility, they believed, would ensure automatic full employment.

Thus, in the classical theory, there was no possibility of unemployment. If there occurred any unemployment it would be of a purely temporary nature. The cause of such unemployment was too high a real wage. And such unemployment would disappear quickly due to fall in real wage.

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The intuition behind the classicists’ analysis of unemployment comes from the standard apparatus of supply and demand curves. They have reached the conclusion that if the labour market does not equilibrate, it must be because the price, i.e., the real wage, is set at an inappropriate (and not at the market-clearing) level.

The demand for labour originates from the profit-maximising decisions of firms. Under competitive conditions, this leads firms to equate the real wage with the marginal product of labour. Hence the demand for labour schedule is a direct reflection of the marginal physical product of labour (MPP L ) function.

With a well-behaved aggregate production function, the MPP L will be a decreasing function of the level of employment, and so the demand for labour varies inversely with the real wage. Consequently, if the supply of labour exceeds the demand and there is a problem of unemployment, then the solution lies with a fall in the real wage as this will increase the quantity of labour demanded and close the unemployment gap.

In his General Theory Keynes disputed the classical analysis of unemployment and the associated policy prescriptions. He introduced the concept of involuntary unemployment that had something to do with inadequate demand in final commodity markets and which could be remedied with the management of demand by fiscal policy and possibly by monetary policy too.

In explaining the cause of unemployment, Keynes focuses on the role of nominal wage inflexibility. In his view, unemployment results from an inflexible money wage which prevents the real wage from adjusting downwards to increase the demand for labour. Thus the unemployment problem originates from an inappropriate real wage.

According to Keynes, the equality of the real wage to the marginal disutility of employment corresponds to the absence of ‘involuntary’ unemployment. (Keynes makes the simplification that the marginal utility of income is constant so that the marginal disutility of employment is the same as the marginal rate of substitution of income for leisure.) Keynes excluded frictional unemployment from involuntary unemployment.

However, it is important to note that Keynes also excluded unemployment “due to the refusal or inability of a unit of labour, as a result of legislation or social practices or of a combination for collective bargaining or of a slow response to change or of mere human obstinacy, to accept a reward corresponding to the value of the product attributable to its marginal productivity”.

Thus, Keynes chose to exclude union wage differentials as well as minimum wage legislation as sources of involuntary unemployment. Clearly, Keynes wanted to focus on a particular type of involuntary unemployment.

Don Patinkin also used the static labour supply definition in his well-known analysis of involuntary unemployment:

The norm of reference to be used in defining involuntary unemployment is the supply curve for labour as long as workers are ‘on their labour supply curve’—that is, as long as they succeed in selling all the labour they want to at the prevailing real wage rate—a state of full employment will be said to exist in the economy.

The above definition of involuntary unemployment based on the labour supply curve was used by the ‘classical’ economists. For example, in 1914 A. C. Pigou proposed measuring involuntary unemployment of a group of persons by the number of hours that these persons would have been willing to provide at the current rate of wages under current conditions of employment.

According to Keynes, however, classical theories (such as Pigou’s) did not admit the possibility of involuntary unemployment by union wage differentials or minimum wage legislation. But Keynes chose to classify this as voluntary.

The Natural Rate of Unemployment (NRU) :

There are two conceptually’ separate reasons why the real wage may fail to adjust to the competitive equilibrium value. Firstly, the institutions of the economy may not correspond to those of a competitive economy: information may be costly, there may be traces of monopoly, etc.

Within this institutional context, markets are assumed to clear and the associated level of unemployment is termed as the ‘natural’ rate of unemployment.

In the language of Milton Friedman:

“The ‘natural rate of unemployment’ is the level that would be ground out by the Walrasian system of general equilibrium equations, provided there is embedded in them the actual structural characteristics of the labour and commodity markets, including market imperfections, stochastic variability in demands and supplies, cost of gathering information and so on”.

Consequently, one way that unemployment might be tackled is through policies which attempt to lower the ‘natural’ rate by removing market imperfections.

A ‘natural’ rate of unemployment is the level of unemployment where inflation is anticipated. For this reason the term the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) is often preferred to the title ‘natural’ to describe the level of unemployment.

The current view is that the natural rate of unemployment is the rate towards which the dynamic system is converging for a given underlying general equilibrium stochastic structure. It takes into account the actual structural characteristics of the labour and commodity markets, including market imperfections, search and mobility costs.

In simple terms, it may be regarded as that level of unemployment which nonetheless remains at full employment.

In truth, NRU is essentially a long-term phenomenon. It is the rate of unemployment towards which the economy gravitates in the long run, subject to the existing imperfections in the labour market which make it difficult for workers to find jobs easily and quickly.

According to Milton Friedman who introduced the term ‘natural rate’ argues that the term ‘natural’ is useful in separating the real forces from the monetary sources. Viewed from this perspective an important feature of the natural rate as emphasised by Friedman (1968) and E. Phelps (1967, 1970) is that it does not correspond to any particular rate of inflation. For any appropriately defined long run, the key implication of this is that there is no long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment.

Following the Friedman lead, the natural and cyclical rates of unemployment are most often treated as separate and independent components. According to this view, cyclical unemployment is characterised as being included by temporary fluctuations in conditions resulting in temporary deviations of the actual rate from the natural rate of unemployment.

Empirical evidence, however suggests considerable covariance between cyclical and structural unemployment. For example, structural unemployment is likely to increase during recessions since firms in declining industries may find it optimal to accelerate eventual reductions in their labour force at such times. Significant covariance’s of this sort raise fundamental questions about the causality of unemployment as well as whether the natural rate of unemployment is an operative concept.

Since structural unemployment is most often interpreted as a component of the natural rate, this raises serious questions about whether natural and cyclical rates of unemployment are separate, independent and indentifiable components.

To sum up, there are two features of the NRU. Firstly, it is an inherently dynamic concept. Secondly, the natural rate is clearly not a fixed and immutable constant. Variations in the composition of the labour force, the rate of structural change, the flow of information and other factors affecting labour force mobility will change the natural rate.

There is widespread agreement in macroeconomics that when there are informational inadequacies leading to sticky prices and difficulties in forming expectations, unemployment may deviate from its ‘natural’ level.

According to Friedman, the government’s demand management policies may influence the ‘natural’ rate. He argues that the variability of inflation is directly related to the level of inflation.

So, more noise enters into price signals at higher rates of inflation with the result that the ‘natural’ rate rises with the rate of inflation,

In 1980 Tobin argued that “the operational NAIRU gravitates towards the average rate of unemployment actually experienced. Among the mechanisms which produce that result are improvements in unemployment compensation and other benefits enacted in response to higher unemployment, loss of on-the-job training and employability by the unemployed, defections to the informal and illegal economy, and a slowdown in capital formation as business firms lowers their estimates of needed capacity.”

If such hysteresis effects are accepted, then an expansionary demand policy — which leaves unemployment ‘temporarily’ below the ‘natural rate — will have a permanent influence because it contributes to reducing the ‘natural’ rate itself.

Job Search and Frictional Unemployment :

In recent years economists have been concerned with frictional unemployment. One proximate cause of unemployment is the mismatch between workers and jobs. Since labour is not homogeneous, a job loss does not immediately lead to job finding. Workers who are laid-off do not find a job easily and quickly.

Job finding itself is a resource-consuming and a time-consuming endeavour. The unemployment caused both the time required by a worker is called frictional unemployment. Such unemployment occurs because we do not live in the wonderful world of the classical economists.

It occurs because information about job availability is not freely available to workers and, even when it is available, it is imperfect. Moreover, workers are not geographically mobile. There are various barriers to labour mobility.

These two factors conjointly reduce the rate of job finding. Moreover, since workers differ in their abilities and performances and jobs also differ in their characteristics (in terms of rewards and sacrifices) different jobs require different skills and offer different wages. This is why an unemployed worker prefers to spend time and money to search out a job of his liking rather than accepting any job that comes along the line.

Frictional unemployment is also related to shift unemployment. Some unemployment occurs due to shifts in demand for consumer goods used by households and producer (capital) goods used by firms.

Since the demand for labour is an indirect (derived) demand, change in the pattern of demand for goods leads to a change in the demand for labour that is required to produce those goods.

Likewise, since different regions of a country produce different goods, the demand for labour may rise in one region (such as Maharashtra or Gujarat) and fall in another region (Orissa or Bihar). Such unemployment caused by a change in the composition of demand among industries or regions is called shift unemployment.

This is another type of frictional unemployment. Since sectorial shifts are occurring all the time in a dynamic economy, and since workers take some time to move from one sector to another due to lack of marketable skill or adequate information, frictional unemployment is a rule rather than an exception.

Frictional unemployment occurs for various other reasons, for example, when old firms face problems of demand recession (such as the workers of Hindustan Motors), when workers’ job performance is inadequate when judged by any standard, and when workers’ particular skills are not in demand any more. This has happened in cases of silent movie actors or typists or tram drivers in most parts of the world.

Frictional unemployment also occurs when workers voluntarily leave their jobs or move from one part of the country to another part (and try to search out better jobs).

Frictional unemployment occurs due to inter-sectoral imbalance between demand and supply forces, i.e., where there is excess supply of labour in one sector offering higher wages due to the fact that some workers from numerous low-paying sectors have crowded the few high- paying sectors.

Efficiency Wage :

A proximate cause of real wage rigidity and involuntary unemployment is associated with the efficiency wage theory. This concept is based on the famous Marshallian concept — the economy of high wages. Marshall first hypothesized that high wages promote efficiency and low wages retard it.

The idea was put into effect in the American manufacturing industry by Henry Ford who followed the practice of giving higher than the prevailing market wage so that the rate of labour turnover came down to a minimum. Ford’s basic objective was to ensure that his most productive workers did not quit after a short association with the organisation.

The efficiency wage theory explains why firms do not cut wages even when there is excess supply of labour. The theory is based on the belief that a wage cut would lower a firm’s wage bill no doubt, but it would also reduce a firm’s profits by lowering worker efficiency.

Various explanations have been offered to explain how wages affect labour productivity:

(i) Improved Health and Enhanced Productivity:

In less developed countries like India, high wages enable workers to improve their health by having a more nutritional diet. Healthy workers are usually found to be more productive than half-fed worker. So, it is in the Tightness of things to give workers a wage above the equilibrium level in order to maintain a healthy work force.

(ii) Low Labour Turnover:

The higher the wage rate, the stronger the incentive of workers to stay with the firm. If the quit rate can be reduced to a minimum, a firm can achieve economy in terms of the time spent recruiting and training new workers.

(iii) Reducing Adverse Selection:

The overall quality of a firm’s labour force depends on the wages it pays to its employees. A wage cut will force a firm’s best workers to take jobs elsewhere in other firms, leaving the firm with inferior employees who have hardly any opportunity outside the firm. This is an example of adverse selection since workers are more informed about their alternative opportunities outside the firm than the firm (the employer).

This is also known as hidden characteristics. So by paying a low wage, a firm may take the risk of hiring inferior workers (who do not have any opportunity outside the firm). One way of reducing adverse selection is to pay a wage above the equilibrium level. This improves the average quality of the work force. So, labour productivity automatically improves.

(iv) Overcoming the Moral Hazard Problem:

High wages also improve worker effort. The truth is that it is not always possible to monitor the work effort of employees. It is the task of the employees themselves to decide how hard to work. This is known as moral hazard, also known as the hidden action.

This refers to the hidden tendency of workers to put sub-optimal effort if their activities are not perfectly monitored. One way of reducing this moral hazard problem is to pay a high wage. The higher the wage, the higher the cost of the worker of being dismissed.

One way of increasing labour productivity is to pay a higher than market wage. This induces more and more of a firm’s employees not to shirk. The common theme of various efficiency wage theories (presented above in a summary form) is that by paying its workers a high wage, a firm can operate more efficiently.

This is why many firms choose to pay more than the market clearing wage. This induces workers to stay with their firms and not to engage in job search activities. But efficiency wage increases the magnitude of involuntary unemployment and creates real wage rigidity.

Economic Insight: Four Models of Efficiency Wage:

There are four models of efficiency wage. The common feature of all the models is that higher than competitive wage can be profitable. All the models are based on the hypothesis that output depends on worker effort and effort, in its turn, varies directly with the wage rate. The more a firm pays, the more effort it gets.

The models originating from the presumed source of positive effort-wage relationship are of the four types:

1. Shirking Models:

In most jobs, workers enjoy some discretion in deciding how hard they work. Piece rates are often impractical because it is not only difficult but virtually impossible to count the “pieces” and counting is costly. In the shirking models, firms pay above the market wages, engage in some monitoring and fire those workers caught shirking.

By paying above market wages, firms decrease the incentive to shirk, since defection then entails loss of rents. According to shirking models, high wage industries are those with high monitoring costs and/ or industries which bear a relatively high cost of employee shirking.

2. Turnover Models:

Firms may also wish to pay above market clearing wages to reduce turnover. High wages are paid to reduce quits. So it follows, by deduction, that the high-wage industries are those in which turnover costs are the highest.

3. Adverse Selection Models:

According to these models, employers cannot gain an insight into the ability of workers, either as potential entrants or on the job, in a costless fashion. It is assumed that the average quality of the applicant pool increases with the wage rate. The main prediction of these models is that industries which are more sensitive to quality differences, or have higher costs of measuring quality, will offer higher wages.

4. Fair-Wage Models:

The premise of these models is that workers will exert more effort if they feel that they are being treated fairly. This premise gives firms an incentive to pay wages above competitive levels whenever their workers’ perceived fair wage exceeds the competitive wage.

If workers believe that fairness requires firms to share rents with employees, then fair wage models predict that industries with high profits will be those which pay high wages. In Fig. 1, we show profit-wage trade-off. In short, industries’ high wages lead to low profits as is shown by the profit-wage curve pw 1 .

If the wage rate is pushed up from w 1 to w 2 , the rate of profit falls from π 1 to π 0 . In other industries high wages lead to high profit as shown by the curve pw 2 . If the wage rate is pushed up from w 1 to w 2 , the rate of profit goes up from to π 0 to π 1 .

The fair wage models also predict high wages in industries where teamwork and worker expectations are particularly important. However, the four models are not mutually exclusive. Firms might well pay above competitive wages to reduce shirking and, thus, attract high-quality applicants and improve worker morale.

Effect of Minimum Wage on Employment :

Since the government does not hire surplus labour in the way it buys surplus agricultural output, a labour surplus takes the form of unemployment which tends to be higher under minimum wage laws than in a free market. In general, those whose employment prospects are reduced most by minimum wage laws are the young, less experienced and less skilled.

As in all cases, a ‘surplus’ is a price phenomenon. Unemployed workers are not surplus in the sense of being useless or in the sense that there is no work for them. Most of these workers are perfectly capable of producing goods and services, even if not to the same extent as more skilled workers. The unemployed are made idle by wage rates artificially set above the level of their productivity.

Moreover, unemployed youth are prevented from acquiring the job skills and experience which could make them more productive—and, therefore, higher earners—in near future. Due to minimum wage laws, unemployment in European countries is higher than that in the USA. Since Switzerland and Hong Kong do not have minimum wage laws, they have very low unemployment rates. In recent years, some countries have allowed their real minimum wage levels to be eroded by inflation.

Related Articles:

• Major Causes of Unemployment: Job Search and Wage Rigidity
• Difference between Voluntary and Involuntary Unemployment
• Keynes’ Money-Wage Rigidity Model of Involuntary Unemployment
• Unemployment Rate Calculation Formula

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Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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Unemployment refers to a situation where a person actively searches for employment but is unable to find work. Unemployment is considered to be a key measure of the health of the economy. The most frequently used measure of unemployment is the unemployment rate. It's calculated by dividing the number of unemployed people by the number of people in the labor force.

Key Takeaways

• Unemployment occurs when workers who want to work are unable to find jobs.
• High rates of unemployment signal economic distress while extremely low rates of unemployment may signal an overheated economy.
• Unemployment can be classified as frictional, cyclical, structural, or institutional.
• Unemployment data is collected and published by government agencies in a variety of ways.
• Many governments offer unemployed individuals a small amount of income through unemployment insurance, as long as they meet certain requirements.

How is Unemployment Defined?

Unemployment is a key economic indicator because it signals the ability (or inability) of workers to obtain gainful work and contribute to the productive output of the economy. More unemployed workers mean less total economic production.

The unemployment definition doesn't include people who leave the workforce for reasons such as retirement, higher education, and disability.

Sign of Economic Distress

Unemployed workers must maintain at least subsistence consumption during their period of unemployment. This means that an economy with high unemployment has lower output without a proportional decline in the need for basic consumption.

High, persistent unemployment can signal serious distress in an economy and even lead to social and political upheaval.

Sign of an Overheating Economy

A low unemployment rate, on the other hand, means that the economy is more likely to be producing near its full capacity, maximizing output, driving wage growth, and raising living standards over time.

However, extremely low unemployment can also be a cautionary sign of an overheating economy, inflationary pressures, and tight conditions for businesses in need of additional workers.

Categories of Unemployment

While the definition of unemployment is clear, economists divide unemployment into many different categories. The two broadest categories are voluntary and involuntary unemployment. When unemployment is voluntary, it means that a person left their job willingly in search of other employment. When it is involuntary, it means that a person was fired or laid off and must now look for another job.

Types of Unemployment

Voluntary and involuntary unemployment can be broken down into four types. We highlight them below.

This type of unemployment is usually short-lived. It is also the least problematic from an economic standpoint. It occurs when people voluntarily change jobs. After a person leaves a company, it naturally takes time to find another job. Similarly, graduates just starting to look for jobs to enter the workforce add to frictional unemployment.

Frictional unemployment is a natural result of the fact that market processes take time and information can be costly. Searching for a new job, recruiting new workers, and matching the right workers to the right jobs all take time and effort. This results in frictional unemployment.

Cyclical unemployment is the variation in the number of unemployed workers over the course of economic upturns and downturns, such as those related to changes in oil prices. Unemployment rises during recessionary periods and declines during periods of economic growth.

Preventing and alleviating cyclical unemployment during recessions is one of the key reasons for the study of economics and the various policy tools that governments employ to stimulate the economy on the downside of business cycles.

Structural unemployment comes about through a technological change in the structure of the economy in which labor markets operate. Technological changes can lead to unemployment among workers displaced from jobs that are no longer needed. Examples of such changes include the replacement of horse-drawn transport with automobiles and the automation of manufacturing.

Retraining these workers can be difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Displaced workers often end up either unemployed for extended periods or leaving the labor force entirely.

Institutional Unemployment

Institutional unemployment results from long-term or permanent institutional factors and incentives in the economy. The following can all contribute to institutional unemployment:

• Government policies , such as high minimum wage floors, generous social benefits programs, and restrictive occupational licensing laws
• Labor market phenomena, including efficiency wages and discriminatory hiring
• Labor market institutions, such as high rates of unionization

Many governments offer unemployment insurance to certain unemployed individuals who meet eligibility requirements.

How to Measure Unemployment

The U.S. government uses surveys, census counts, and the number of unemployment insurance claims to track unemployment.

The U.S. Census conducts a monthly survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to produce the primary estimate of the nation’s unemployment rate. This survey has been done every month since 1940.

The sample consists of about 60,000 eligible households. That translates to about 110,000 people each month. The Census changes a quarter of the sampled households each month so that no household is represented for more than four consecutive months. This is meant to strengthen the reliability of the estimates.

Many variations of the unemployment rate exist, with different definitions of who is an unemployed person and who is in the labor force.

The BLS commonly cites the U-3 unemployment rate (defined as the total unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force) as the official unemployment rate; however, this definition does not include discouraged unemployed workers who are no longer looking for work.

Other categories of unemployment include discouraged workers and part-time or underemployed workers who want to work full-time but, for economic reasons, are unable to do so.

History of Unemployment

Although the U.S. government began tracking unemployment in the 1940s, the highest rate of unemployment to date occurred during the Great Depression, when unemployment rose to 24.9% in 1933.

Between 1931 and 1940, the unemployment rate remained above 14% but subsequently dropped down to the single digits. It remained there until 1982 when it climbed above 10%.

In 2009, during the Great Recession, unemployment again rose to 10%. In April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment hit 14.8%. As of August 2024, the unemployment rate was 4.2%.

What Are the Main Causes of Unemployment?

There are many reasons for unemployment. These include recessions, depressions, technological improvements, job outsourcing, and voluntarily leaving one job to find another.

What Are the 3 Types of Unemployment?

Today's economists point to three main types of unemployment: frictional, structural, and cyclical. Frictional unemployment is the result of voluntary employment transitions within an economy. Frictional unemployment naturally occurs, even in a growing, stable economy as workers change jobs.

Structural unemployment can produce permanent disruptions due to fundamental and permanent changes that occur in the structure of the economy. These changes can marginalize a group of workers. They include technological changes, a lack of relevant skills, and jobs moving overseas to another country. Cyclical unemployment relates to the loss of jobs that occurs during changes in business cycles.

What Is the Strict Definition of Unemployment?

The official unemployment definition comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which states that "people are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior four weeks, and are currently available for work."

Unemployment is when an individual who is not employed and is seeking employment, cannot find work. Unemployment is a key indicator of the health of an economy. A low unemployment rate represents a strong economy while a high unemployment rate represents a weak economy.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ How the Government Measures Unemployment ."

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Concepts and Definitions (CPS) ."

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization for States, 2023 Annual Averages ."

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “ Table A-15. Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization .”

U.S. Census Bureau. " U.S. Census Bureau History: The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942 ."

U.S. Census Bureau. " Chapter D, Labor: Labor Force (Series D 1-682) ." Page 135.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED. “ Unemployment Rate .”

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