Marco Lau
What are the main means by which unemployment can be controlled?
Unemployment, the state of being unemployed, especially involuntarily can cause big problems in our modern world. But how does one measure such an enormous prospect? When measuring unemployment it is first necessary to measure the working population, as not every person is able to work. Looking at the elderly and young children as labour resources would be a waste of time. Therefore the first step to controlling unemployment would be to first measure the size of the scale we are working with. We must also look at current unemployment problems, more specifically the costs of unemployment, what causes unemployment as well as examining the various types of unemployment including voluntary and in-voluntary unemployment. Would 100% employment benefit the economy? Overall we must discuss the consequences unemployment bring and the means by which it may be controlled.
In order to measure unemployment in the UK we have the claimant count, the claimant count includes those people who are eligible to claim the Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA). People eligible to receive the JSA do so for six months before moving onto special unemployment measures. Some people even though they are searching for work do not fit the criteria of the claimant count and are therefore not registered as part of the unemployed, the claimant count in the UK in 2003 averaged 3% of the labour force.
Alongside the claimant count there is the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS covers those people who have looked for work in the past month and are able to start work in the next two weeks.
On average, the labour force survey measure has exceeded the claimant count total by about 400,000 in recent years. This is perhaps the most accurate way with which to measure a scale of unemployment.
In macroeconomics unemployment can be