Unemployment

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Unemployment
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The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page. (February 2008)

CIA figures for the latest world unemployment ratesUnemployment occurs when a person is available to work and seeking work but currently without work.[1] The prevalence of unemployment is usually measured using the unemployment rate, which is defined as the percentage of those in the labor force who are unemployed. The unemployment rate is also used in economic studies and economic indexes such as the United States' Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators as a measure of the state of the macroeconomics.

There are a variety of different causes of unemployment, and disagreement on which causes are most important. Different schools of economic thought suggest different policies to address unemployment. Monetarists for example, believe that controlling inflation to facilitate growth and investment is more important, and will lead to increased employment in the long run. Keynesians on the other hand emphasize the smoothing out of business cycles by manipulating aggregate demand. There is also disagreement on how exactly to measure unemployment. Different countries experience different levels of unemployment;as of February 2009 the USA unemployment levels exceed those in the European Union and it also changes over time (e.g. the Great depression) throughout economic cycles.


Unemployment rate as a percentage of the labor force in the United States according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to economist Edmond Malinvaud, the type of unemployment that occurs depends on the situation at the goods...