Unemployment

In economics, a person who is able and willing to work yet is unable to find a paying job is considered unemployed. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed workers divided by the total civilian labor force, which includes both the unemployed and those with jobs (all those willing and able to work for pay). In practice, measuring the number of unemployed workers actually seeking work is notoriously difficult. There are several different methods for measuring the number of unemployed workers. Each method has its own biases and the different systems make comparing unemployment statistics between countries, especially those with different systems, difficult.

Causes of Unemployment

Capitalism and Unemployment

Open unemployment of the sort defined above is associated with capitalist economies. Preliterate ("primitive") communities treat their members as parts of an extended family and thus do not allow them to be unemployed — in the effort to preserve the group. In precapitalist societies such as European feudalism, the serfs (though clearly dominated and exploited by the lords) were never "unemployed" because they had direct access to the land (and the needed tools) and could thus work to produce crops. Just as on the American frontier during the 19th century, there were day laborers and subsistence farmers on poor land, whose position in society was somewhat analogous to the unemployed of today. But they were not truly unemployed, since they could find work and support themselves on the land.

Related Topics:
Capitalist - Feudalism

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Under both ancient and modern systems of slave-labor, slave-owners never let their property be unemployed for long. (If anything, they would sell the unneeded laborer.) Planned economies (often called "communist countries") such as the old Soviet Union or today's Cuba typically provide occupation for everyone, using substantial overstaffing if necessary. (This is called "hidden unemployment," which is sometimes seen as a kind of underemployment, definition 3.) Workers' cooperatives — such as those producing plywood in the U.S. Pacific Northwest — do not let their members become unemployed unless the co-op itself goes bankrupt.

Related Topics:
Planned economies - Communist countries - Soviet Union - Cuba - Underemployment - Workers' cooperatives - Plywood

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On the other hand, under capitalism the individual profit-seeking employer does not have to bear the complete social costs of laying off or firing workers, so they are willing to live with (or even profit from) the existence of unemployment — unless employees are able to win good severance packages or protection from the government (such as restrictions on firing and lay-offs, although some doubt if even these help since they just make employers more reluctant to take the risk of hiring someone in the first place). (That is, there is arguably a market failure due to the existence of external costs of firing or laying-off of people.) On the "supply side," workers' lack of significantly positive net worth (beyond equity in a home or a car) makes it very difficult for them to go into business for themselves to avoid unemployment. Economist Edward Wolff estimates that in 1995 in the U.S., families with adults aged 25-45 in the middle income quintile could sustain their current consumption for only 1.2 months (or live at 125% of the poverty standard for 1.8 months) based on their financial reserves. Poorer quintiles of course had more difficulty.

Related Topics:
Social cost - Market failure - External costs

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Because not all unemployment may be "open" and counted by government agencies, official unemployment may be very low even under capitalism. Most poorer capitalist countries lack a modern welfare state and unemployment insurance so that it is very difficult to afford being unemployed for very long: they often end up taking jobs below their skill levels. Those who might be counted as "unemployed" in the rich countries end up instead being underemployed (definition 1) and not counted.

Related Topics:
Welfare state - Unemployment insurance - Underemployed

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Debate on Unemployment

There is considerable debate amongst economists as to what the main causes of unemployment are. Keynesian economics emphasizes unemployment resulting from insufficient effective demand for goods and service in the economy (cyclical unemployment). Others point to structural problems (inefficiencies) inherent in labor markets (structural unemployment). Classical or neoclassical economics tends to reject these explanations, and focuses more on rigidities imposed on the labour market from the outside, such as minimum wage laws, taxes, and other regulations that may discourage the hiring of workers (classical unemployment). Yet others see unemployment as largely due to voluntary choices by the unemployed (frictional unemployment). On the other extreme, Marxists see unemployment as a structural fact helping to preserve business profitability and capitalism (Marxian unemployment). The different perspectives may be right in different ways, contributing to our understanding of different types of unemployment.

Related Topics:
Economist - Keynesian economics - Effective demand - Cyclical unemployment - Structural unemployment - Classical - Neoclassical economics - Classical unemployment - Frictional unemployment - Marxian unemployment

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Though there have been several definitions of voluntary (and involuntary) unemployment in the economics literature, a simple distinction is often applied. Voluntary unemployment is blamed on the individual unemployed workers (and their decisions), whereas involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment (including the market structure and the level of aggregate demand) in which individuals operate. (As is usual in economics, the sociological or social-psychological factors that help determine individual choices are ignored here.) In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary, since it reflects individual search behavior. On the other hand, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, classical unemployment, and Marxian unemployment are largely involuntary in nature. However, the existence of structural unemployment may reflect choices made by the unemployed in the past, while classical unemployment may result from the legislative and economic choices made by labor unions and/or political parties aiming to help workers. So in practice, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary unemployment is hard to draw. The clearest cases of involuntary unemployment are those where there are fewer job vacancies than unemployed workers even when wages are allowed to adjust, so that even if all vacancies were to be filled, there would be unemployed workers. This is the case of cyclical unemployment and Marxian unemployment, for which macroeconomic forces lead to microeconomic unemployment.

Related Topics:
Frictional unemployment - Cyclical unemployment - Structural unemployment - Classical unemployment - Marxian unemployment - Political parties

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For more details, see unemployment types.

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One of the main causes of unemployment in a free market economy is the fact that the law of supply and demand is not really applied to the price to be paid for employing people. In situations of falling demand for products & services the wages of all employees (from President to Errand Boy) are not automatically reduced by the required percentage to make the business viable. Instead whole groups of persons are laid off, with all the consequent social hardships. In the classical framework, such unemployment is due to the existing legal framework, along with "interferences" with the market by non-market institutions such as labor unions and government. On the other hand, for Keynes, Marx, and many others, many of the problems with market adjustment arise from the market itself (Keynes) or from the nature of capitalism (Marx).

Related Topics:
Market itself - Capitalism

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