3.2 Employment and Unemployment Flashcards
WHat is the claimant count?
number of people officially claiming unemployment related benefits - must be actively seeking work
What is the labour force survey?
all those actively seeking and available for work, whether or not they are claiming benefits
What is long term unemployed
people unemployed for at least one year
what is full employment
when there is enough unfilled job vacancies for all the unemployed to take work
What are discouraged workers?
people out of work for a long time who may give up on job search and effectively leave the labour market
What does economically inactive mean?
thosw who are of working age but are neither in work nor actively seeking paid work
What does employment rate mean?
the percentage of the population of working age in full time or part time paid work
What does unemployment rate mean
percentage of the economically active population who are unemployed
What are zero hours contracts?
workers on call and do not get a quaranteed number of working hours
What is the natural rate of unemployment ?
rate of unemployment when the labour makret is in equilibrium. it is caused by supply side factors rather then demand side
Give determinants of natural rate of unemployment
- availability of job information
- level of benefits
- skills + education
- degree of labour mobility
- felxibility of laboru market
What are the consequences to the economy of unemployment?
- waste of human capital and lost output (low LRAS)
- reduced international competitiveness (reduces incentives for firms to invest, leads to increased export competitiveness)
- increased gov spending
- lost tax revenue
What are the consequences to firms of unemployment ?
- reduced demand for goods and services
- less incentive to invest
- higher business taxes
What are the consequences to the unemployed of unemployment?
- lower living standards
- social costs
- financial costs
- de-skilling
- reduced chances of finding work
What is frictional unemployment?
unemployment that is usually short term and occurs when a worker switches between jobs
What are the assumptions about frictional unemployment?
- a job vacancy exists
- friction in the labour market prevents the unemployment from filling vacancy
- number of unfilled job vacancies can be used as a measure of the level of frictional unemployed
What is structural unemployment ?
- occurs when the demand fro labour is less than the supply of labour in an individual labour market
long term unemployment results from structural decline of industries due to … ?
- decline of manufacturing
- occupational immobility
- geographical immobility
- robotics replacing jobs
- long term regional decline
What are some barriers to successfully getting new jobs/
- may require specific skills
- jobs need additional training which could be costly
- high cost / availability of childcare
- cost of commuting to work
- unaffordable housing
What can labour immobilities lead to?
structural unemployment
What does geographical immobility of labour mean?
barriers that prevent people moving from one area to another to find work
What are some good reasons why geographical immobility might exist ?
- family and social ties
- financial costs involved in moving homes
- high costs of renting properties
- differance in cost between regions
What is the occupational immobility of labour?
- inability of labour to switch between differant occupations
What is the impact of automation?
- mechanism:workers operating machines , increases overall demand for labour
- automation lessens the demand for labour as machines operate
