unemployment
U.S. History
(noun)
The level of joblessness in an economy, often measured as a percentage of the workforce.
Economics
Examples of unemployment in the following topics:
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Reasons for Unemployment
- There are three reasons for unemployment which are categorizes as frictional, structural, and cyclical unemployment.
- There are four types of unemployment.
- The natural level of unemployment is the unemployment rate when an economy is operating at full capacity.
- There is always at least some frictional unemployment in an economy, so the level of involuntary unemployment is properly the unemployment rate minus the rate of frictional unemployment.
- Over time, unemployment has returned to about 5%, which is the approximate natural rate of unemployment.
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Types of Unemployment: Frictional, Structural, Cyclical
- Structural unemployment is one of the main types of unemployment within an economic system.
- It is often impacted by persistent cyclical unemployment.
- Frictional unemployment is another type of unemployment within an economy.
- The natural unemployment rate, sometimes called the structural unemployment rate, was developed by Friedman and Phelps in the 1960s.
- The natural rate of unemployment is a combination of structural and frictional unemployment.
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Defining Full Employment
- Full employment is defined as an acceptable level of unemployment somewhere above 0%; there is no cyclical or deficient-demand unemployment.
- Ideal unemployment excludes types of unemployment where labor-market inefficiency is reflected.
- Ideal unemployment promotes the efficiency of the economy.
- The full employment unemployment rate is also referred to as "natural" unemployment.
- Full employment is defined as "ideal" unemployment.
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Typical Lengths of Unemployment
- Long-term unemployment lasts 27 or more weeks.
- Generally, unemployment is high during recessions.
- Short-term unemployment is considered any unemployment period that lasts less than 27 weeks.
- Long-term unemployment is classified as unemployment that lasts for 27 weeks or longer.
- Short-term unemployment is considered less than 27 weeks, while long-term unemployment is joblessness that lasts 27 weeks or longer.
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Defining Unemployment
- It differs from frictional unemployment because it lasts longer.
- Hidden: the unemployment of potential workers that is not taken into account in official unemployment statistics because of how the data is collected.
- The final measurement is called the rate of unemployment .
- The effects of unemployment can be broken down into three types:
- Unemployment can lead to homelessness, illness, and mental stress.
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Measuring the Unemployment Rate
- Unemployment occurs when people are without work and are actively seeking employment.
- The unemployment rate is measured using two different labor force surveys.
- The survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.
- The unemployment rate is updated on a monthly basis.
- They calculate different aspects of unemployment.
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Employment Levels
- Unemployment above 0% is advocated as necessary to control inflation, which has brought about the concept of the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU).
- An alternative, more normative, definition describes full employment as the attainment of the ideal unemployment rate, where the types of unemployment that reflect labor-market inefficiency (such as structural unemployment) do not exist.
- There are three important categories of unemployment levels that should be understood in order to evaluate the effect of employment levels on overall economic performance: cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, and frictional unemployment.
- Seasonal unemployment may be seen as a kind of structural unemployment, since it is a type of unemployment that is linked to certain kinds of jobs (construction work or migratory farm work).
- Frictional unemployment is always present in an economy, so the level of involuntary unemployment is properly the unemployment rate minus the rate of frictional unemployment.
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Shortcomings of the Measurement
- Unemployment is measured in order to determine the unemployment rate.
- In order to find the rate of unemployment, four methods are used:
- Calculates unemployment by different categories such as race and gender.
- This method is the least effective for measuring unemployment.
- The unemployment rate is the percentage of unemployment calculated by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by the number of individuals currently employed in the labor force.
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The Short-Run Phillips Curve
- The Phillips curve depicts the relationship between inflation and unemployment rates.
- As unemployment rates increase, inflation decreases; as unemployment rates decrease, inflation increases.
- When the unemployment rate is 2%, the corresponding inflation rate is 10%.
- As unemployment decreases to 1%, the inflation rate increases to 15%.
- As output increases, unemployment decreases.
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The Phillips Curve
- The Phillips curve shows the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment: as unemployment decreases, inflation increases.
- The Phillips curve relates the rate of inflation with the rate of unemployment.
- The Phillips curve argues that unemployment and inflation are inversely related: as levels of unemployment decrease, inflation increases.
- In his original paper, Phillips tracked wage changes and unemployment changes in Great Britain from 1861 to 1957, and found that there was a stable, inverse relationship between wages and unemployment.
- In this image, an economy can either experience 3% unemployment at the cost of 6% of inflation, or increase unemployment to 5% to bring down the inflation levels to 2%.