job vacancy youth listings

');

Seasonal unemployment

Seasonal unemployment results from the fluctuations in demands for labour in certain industries because of the seasonal nature of production.In such industries there is a seasonal pattern in the demand for labor. During the period when the industry is at its peak there is a high degree of seasonal employment, but during the off-peak period there is a high seasonal unemployment.

Seasonal unemployment occurs when an occupation is not in demand at certain seasons.

Long-term unemployment

This is normally defined, for instance in European Union statistics, as unemployment lasting for longer than one year. It is an important indicator of social exclusion.

Okun's Law

Okun's law states that for every 3% GDP falls relative to potential GDP, unemployment rises 1% (of the total workforce). When the economy operates at productive capacity, it will experience the natural rate of unemployment.

U= ^u-h

Involuntary unemployment

Say's law declares that, in time, "markets clear" in an unfettered, unregulated laissez-faire economy: every seller will find a buyer at some strike price, and every buyer will find a seller at some strike price. Sellers and buyers may refuse the strike price but this personal decision is voluntary, which causes the selling or buying to leave the economic model. This theory relies heavily on the absence of government regulation and assumes a developed economy without sabotage where labor strikes, as opposed to strike (mutually agreed upon) prices, are illegal.

Keynes tried to demonstrate in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that Say's law did not work in the real world of the 1930s Depression because of oversaving and private investor timidity, and that in consequence people could be thrown out of work involuntarily without being able to find acceptable new jobs.

This conflict of the neoclassical and Keynesian theories has had strong influence on government policy. The tendency for government is to curtail and eliminate unemployment through increases in benefits and government jobs, and to encourage the job-seeker to both consider new careers and relocation to another city.

Involuntary unemployment does not exist in agrarian societies nor is it formally recognized to exist in underdeveloped but urban societies such as the mega-cities of Africa and of India/Pakistan, given that, in such societies, the suddenly unemployed person must meet his survival needs, by getting a new job quickly at any strike price, entrepreneurship, or joining the invisible economy of the hustler.

From the narrative standpoint, involuntary unemployment is discussed in the stories by Ehrenreich, the narrative sociology of Bourdieu, and novels of social suffering such as John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

Solutions

Societies try a number of different measures to get as many people as possible into work. However, attempts to reduce the level of unemployment beyond the Natural rate of unemployment generally fail, resulting only in less output and more inflation.

Demand side

According to classical economic theory, markets reach equilibrium where supply equals demand; everyone who wants to sell at the market price can. Those who do not want to sell at this price do not; in the labour market this is classical unemployment. Increases in the demand for labour will move the economy along the demand curve, increasing wages and employment. The demand for labour in an economy is derived from the demand for goods and services. As such, if the demand for goods and services in the economy increases, the demand for labour will increase, increasing employment and wages. Monetary policy and fiscal policy can both be used to increase short-term growth in the economy, increasing the demand for labour and decreasing unemployment.

Supply side

However, the labour market is not efficient: it doesn't clear. Minimum wages and union activity keep wages from falling, which means too many people want to sell their labour at the going price but cannot. Supply-side policies can solve this by making the labour market more flexible. These include removing the minimum wage and reducing the power of unions. Other supply side policies include education to make workers more attractive to employers.

Supply side reforms also increase long-term growth. This increased supply of goods and services requires more workers, increasing employment. It is argued that supply side policies, which include cutting taxes on businesses and reducing regulation, create jobs and reduce unemployment.

Tax-related

One structural solution to unemployment proposed was a graduated retail tax, or "jobs levy", to firms where labor is more expensive than capital. This method will shift tax burden to capital intensive firms and away from labor intensive firms. In theory this will make firms shift operations to a more politically desired balance between labor intensive and capital intensive production. The excess tax revenue from the jobs levy would finance labor intensive public projects. However, by raising the value of labour artificially above capital, this would discourage capital investment, the source of economic growth. With less growth, long-run employment would fall.

Costs of unemployment

Individual

Unemployed individuals are unable to earn money to meet financial obligations. Failure to pay mortgage payments or to pay rent may lead to homelessness through foreclosure or eviction. Unemployment increases susceptibility to malnutrition, illness, mental stress, and loss of self-esteem, leading to depression. According to a study published in Social Indicator Research, even those who tend to be optimistic find it difficult to look on the bright side of things when unemployed. Using interviews and data from German participants aged 16 to 94 – including individuals coping with the stresses of real life and not just a volunteering student population – the researchers determined that even optimists struggled with being unemployed.

Dr. M. Brenner conducted a study in 1979 on the "Influence of the Social Environment on Psychology." Brenner found that for every 10% increase in the number of unemployed there is an increase of 1.2% in total mortality, a 1.7% increase in cardiovascular disease, 1.3% more cirrhosis cases, 1.7% more suicides, 4.0% more arrests, and 0.8% more assaults reported to the police. A more recent study by Christopher Ruhm on the effect of recessions on health found that several measures of health actually improve during recessions. As for the impact of an economic downturn on crime, during the Great Depression the crime rate did not decrease. Because unemployment insurance in the U.S. typically does not replace 50% of the income one received on the job (and one cannot receive it forever), the unemployed often end up tapping welfare programs such as Food Stamps or accumulating debt. Higher government transfer payments in the form of welfare and food stamps decrease spending on productive economic goods, decreasing GDP.

Some hold that many of the low-income jobs are not really a better option than unemployment with a welfare state (with its unemployment insurance benefits). But since it is difficult or impossible to get unemployment insurance benefits without having worked in the past, these jobs and unemployment are more complementary than they are substitutes. (These jobs are often held short-term, either by students or by those trying to gain experience; turnover in most low-paying jobs is high) Unemployment insurance keeps an available supply of workers for the low-paying jobs, while the employers' choice of management techniques (low wages and benefits, few chances for advancement) is made with the existence of unemployment insurance in mind. This combination promotes the existence of one kind of unemployment, frictional unemployment.

Another cost for the unemployed is that the combination of unemployment, lack of financial resources, and social responsibilities may push unemployed workers to take jobs that do not fit their skills or allow them to use their talents. Unemployment can cause underemployment.

The fear of job loss can spur psychological anxiety.

Social

An economy with high unemployment is not using all of the resources, i.e. labour, available to it. Since it is operating below its production possibility frontier, it could have higher output if all the workforce were usefully employed. However, there is a trade off between economic efficiency and unemployment: if the frictionally unemployed accepted the first job they were offered, they would be likely to be operating at below their skill level, reducing the economy's efficiency.

It is estimated that, during the Great Depression, unemployment due to sticky wages cost the US economy about $4 trillion. This is many times larger than losses due to monopolies, cartels and tariffs.

During a long period of unemployment, workers can lose their skills, causing a loss of human capital. Being unemployed can also reduce the life expectancy of workers by about 7 years

High unemployment can encourage xenophobia and protectionism as workers fear that foreigners are stealing their jobs. Efforts to preserve existing jobs of domestic and native workers include legal barriers against "outsiders" who want jobs, obstacles to immigration, and/or tariffs and similar trade ba