UNEMPLOYMENT

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 516.

Reading 2

There will always be a certain amount of unemployment in the economy. When economists talk about full employment they mean that everyone who can work and wants to work has a job. Able workers who are not working are simply not happy with the salaries that are offered – or just can't be bothered!

However, economies rarely reach full unemployment. There are a number of reasons for this, and a number of different types of unemployment. One of these is cyclical employment. This type of unemployment varies with the growth and recession cycle of the economy. As the economy grows, demand for labour grows and unemployment falls. As the economy contracts, unemployment grows.

A second kind of unemployment is structural unemployment. This occurs when changing public tastes or advances in technology cause a fall in demand for some types of work. For example, computer technology has revolutionized the printing industry, and many traditional printers' jobs have become obsolete. Sometimes whole regions of a country suffer from high structural unemployment. The north-east of England, for example, was famous for many years for its shipbuilding industry. Competition from abroad