Unemployment In The United States

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Unemployment is a major threat to Americans living in the U.S. Unemployment occurs when a jobless person who is actively seeking employment is unable to find work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the person must have been actively searching for work for four weeks. Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate. It is the number of unemployed persons divided by the number of people in the labor force. Unemployment in the United States discusses the causes and measures of U.S. unemployment and strategies to help reduce it. Job growth and unemployment are affected by many factors. These factors affect the number of workers, wage levels, and the duration of unemployment. Most of the time, unemployment is caused when the economy …show more content…
It can also be destructive to the economy as well. When unemployment rises, consumer spending decreases and that is one of the keys to growth in the economy. If unemployment is very high it can cause a recession, which is a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced. Less consumer spending reduces business revenue, which causes companies to cut more payroll to reduce their costs. It is like a domino effect that repeats itself. More cutbacks, means more unemployment, which leads to less consumer spending, that causes reduced business revenue, which leads back to more cutbacks. It keeps repeating itself when unemployment is at a high …show more content…
It mostly occurs when people are switching between jobs. This type of unemployment is classed as voluntary unemployment because workers are choosing to remain unemployed instead of getting the first job that comes along. People want to find out about possible new job opportunities. But shouldn’t the workers keep their job until they actually find a new one, avoiding a period of being unemployed? There are many reasons behind that theory because it is more logical to keep the job until employed somewhere else. For example, someone may have moved to a different state after a marriage and is in search of a new job in their new home. Frictional unemployment usually drops during a recession. The reason behind this is that workers are afraid to quit their jobs because of the fact that it will be very difficult to find a new job when the economy has slowed down dramatically. Frictional unemployment is not harmful to the economy, compared to cyclical unemployment. It most likely will not be a cause of recession. Frictional unemployment is an increase of workers moving towards better positions and finding better jobs. Instead of bringing the economy down like cyclical unemployment, frictional unemployment helps the economy. It makes it easier for companies to give opportunities to new workers. If no one decided to quit their job to find a new one, it would be very difficult for other people