Skip to main content

Unemployment

Unemployment 

Unemployed - when someone is economically active but not in employment. They are part of the labour force, but do not have a job. 
Economically inactive - people of working age (16-64) who are not looking for work, for a variety of reasons (e.g students, those who are sick/caring for others). Also includes discouraged workers. Not part of the labour force. 
Discouraged workers - people who have been unable to find employment and are no longer looking for work. 
Unemployment rate - the percentage of the labour force registered as unemployed. 
Employment rate - the percentage of the population of working age (labour force) that is employed. 
Labour force - the number of people in employment + the registered unemployed.  
Participation rate - percentage of people in the population in the labour force. 
Long term unemployment - number of people out of work for at least one year. 
Vacancies - the number of registered jobs available yet unfilled. 
Underemployment - when someone is employed in a second-choice occupation or wants to work full-time but works part-time (e.g a lawyer working as a cashier) 

 To be in employment is to be working for a firm/organisation or to be self-employed. 

Unemployment in the UK is measured in two ways: 

Claimant Count 
The number of people who claim the Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA). Claimants can receive this for six months. By claiming JSA, the claimant states that they are out of work and capable of, available for and seeking work during the week in which the claim is made. 

 A downside to this is that some people claiming JSA are not actually prepared to or available to work. It also doesn't include some who are looking for work but not eligible to claim JSA (e.g women returning to the labour force after childbirth) 

Labour Force Survey (LFS) 
Number of people who have looked for work in the past month, and are able to start work in the next two weeks. This measure usually exceeds the claimant count by over 600,000. 

 The ILO unemployment rate is based on the LFS. It measures the percentage of the workforce that are without jobs, looking for jobs, and are willing and available to work. 

 This data is based on a sample survey, so it is possible that it isn't fully representative of the UK as a whole. 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Business Growth

Why do businesses grow?  Profit motive Businesses grow to make more profit by increasing revenue. Selling more to more people often means profits increase.  The valuation of a company's share is often influenced by how it is expected to do in the future (ie how much profit it is likely to make). When it is projected to do well, share prices increase, and it is valued more highly on the stock market. This provides incentive for companies to increase profits, doing well on the stock market increases investment and raises more money.  Cost motive - economies of scale When firms are larger, relative costs are smaller. This is because some costs are fixed, so if you are a larger company, producing larger output, the cost per unit will decrease.  e.g. If a T-shirt factory's main cost is the £10,000 to rent to factory each month, and it produces only 1000 shirts a month, each shirt costs £10 to make. But if it scales up and produces 100,000 shirts a month, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Philips curve

The Philips curve  The Philips curve suggests a tradeoff between unemployment and inflation - to decrease unemployment, inflation has to rise. This creates a conflict between two macroeconomic objectives - targeting inflation at 2% (in the UK) and decreasing unemployment. 
Post a Comment
Read more

3.1.3 Demergers

Demergers   A demerger is the breaking up of a firm into separate firms.  e.g Sports Direct selling off Dunlop in 2016. PepsiCo splitting off foods businesses (KFC, Taco Bell, etc.) into a separate corporation, Yum Brands. Later Yum Brands demerged into Yum China and Yum Brands. Reasons for demergers Diseconomies of scale - the opposite of economies of scale, where average costs begin to rise as output increases. May occur due to it being difficult to retain control on the expanding business - principal-agent problem may arise. Also less co-operation by employees who feel more alienated and as a result less productive - they feel less of a connection to the business.  May also be hard to co-ordinate and communicate between locations and employees when a firm is large. Miscommunication can again lead to costs rising.  To focus on core businesses to streamline costs and improve profits. The firm may have expanded into different markets and expe...
Post a Comment
Read more