Unemployment Flashcards
definition of unemployment
Where workers don’t have jobs but are willing and able to work
Definition of employment
Members of the economy ages 16 or over who have completed at least one hour of work in the period measured
What is full employment??
The level of employment rates where there is no demand deficient unemployment (usually about 4%)
Definition of economically inactive
People of working age who are neither employed or unemployed
Eg retired people or uni students
What are the two ways of measuring unemployment??
Claimant count= number receiving benefits
Labour force survey= survey of households
What’s the LFS?
Labour force survey- done by the ONS, calculated by surveying 60,000 households each month
What’s the claimant count?
Monthly count of those seeking JSA/ job seekers allowance
Advantages and disadvantages of LFS
A= includes people who aren’t eligible for job seekers allowance, so may be more representative
-world renowned so figured can be compared
D= survey, so you may have sampling errors related to proportion of groups of people picked
- depends on judgement of survey people, hard to decide if someone’s sick or actively seeking work
Advantages and disadvantages of claimant count
A= counts are more accurate than surveys
D= some people may be too embarrassed to announce themselves as unemployed, so figures may be lower than they should be
- some people aren’t generally unemployed but they work in the informal economy/ not on record
4 types of unemployment
Frictional unemployment
Structural unemployment
Demand-deficient/ cyclical
Classic unemployment
What’s frictional unemployment??
Unemployment caused by the time people are moving in between jobs eg graduates, so there will always be frictional unemployment
What is structural unemployment and the 4 examples of it??
Structural unemployment= a mismatch of skills in the labour market
Occupational immobility= difficultly learning new skills in a new industry
Geographical industry= difficult moving regions to find a new job
Technological advances= development of labour saving devices
Structural change in the economy= eg decline in the coal industry puts coal miners out of work
What’s demand deficient unemployment
When the economy isn’t in full capacity, due to a recession
what’s classical unemployment?
When workers price themselves above the equilibrium, and so no one wants to employ them
