Structural Unemployment and Cyclical Unemployment in the United States

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Introduction: The high and persistent levels of unemployment in the United States have become one of the most debated topics among economists, policy makers and the unemployed for more than a decade; especially its impact and best approach to resolving the increasing unemployment rates. It is important to note that as much of a global phenomenon unemployment it is, unemployment occurs in numerous forms, economists have broken down unemployment into three main types: Frictional, structural and cyclical. The in-cooperation of these forms is significant to this paper for better understanding of current trends and identifying characteristics of structural unemployment.  Frictional Unemployment arises from the ever-present movement of people into and out of jobs, it depicts the period where the quantity of labor demanded just equals the quantity of labor supplied at going market wage1. Examples include first time job searchers like college graduates or previously employed workers who are returning to work. A pattern of the matching process occurs in frictional unemployment similar to structural unemployment but the distinctive features are frictional unemployment is more of a voluntary nature and it’s a lot shorter compared to structural unemployment2.  Structural unemployment can be defined as a form of unemployment where at a given wage rate, the quantity of labor supplied exceeds the quantity of labor demanded because there is a fundamental mismatch between the number of 1 Ehrenberg,R.G.and Robert S.S. (2012).Modern Labor Economics:Theory and Public Policy,11thEdition.Boston,MA:Pearson Education,Inc. p 502 2 Ibid p 501-502 people that want to work and the number of jobs available that consequently lengthen unemploy... ... middle of paper ... ...Rikin, J. (1995). The end of work: The decline of the global labor force and the dawn of the post-market era. United States: Putnam publishing group. Ryan Avent, (2011, Feb 15th). America's jobless recovery: The return of structural unemployment concerns.Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/21015977 Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson. (2012). Where did the jobs go-- and how do we get them back? :Your guided tour to America's employment crisis. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks. Shimer R., The Probability of Finding a Job, American Economic Review, vol. 98, no. 2 (May 2008), pp. 268-273. Silva J. & Khan A., (2010).Our two cents on structural unemployment.Retrieved from http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/ababj1110/index.php?startid=10 Valletta R. and Kuang K.“Is Structural Unemployment on the Rise?,”FRBSF Economic Letter, No. 2010-34, November 8, 2010, p. 3.

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