Unemployment essay

The debates on employment and unemployment in the world have been a major feature of public policy for the last few years. With unemployment reaching nowadays scales, we have to realize that it is time to confront the problem. Unemployment is a conventional problem that has occupied many politicians and scientists. So, in this paper we have to discuss this situation systematically and prove that unemployment is not empty words but a real problem that should be solve as soon as possible.

First of all it is necessary to define the notion “unemployment” and it will help to research this problem with more details. According to www.dol.gov “Unemployment is the condition of one who is capable of working, actively seeking work, but unable to find it.” The concept “unemployment” has a long history and I think that our society will never forget this term.  It is important to note, that not all people who have no work are considered unemployment because the concept of unemployment includes an active membership in the labor force and real searches of the work.  Unemployment is also named in some cases the “chief indicator of economic health” that is based on unemployment statistic data that were collected and analyzed by government labor offices in many countries. Saying about the United States we can conclude that in the United States an unemployment rate of two percent is often cited as a “base” rate. Symes (1995) shows the situation with unemployment in the next way: “in Western Europe, unemployment is by far the most important issue. When presented with the choice of 15 different areas of concern, west European nations put unemployment either first or in the top three. Europeans felt that unemployment was the main cause of poverty. Elsewhere in the world, people were likely to choose lack of education as the main reason. Europeans also put great emphasis on insufficient welfare funding. People from the former eastern bloc put slightly less emphasis on unemployment and more on drug and alcohol abuse. These countries also tend to be more concerned about the environment than about economic growth.” Giving a historical perspective of the problem we see that it affects by different causes and among them we can find three principal reasons of unemployment:

ü    loss of work (discharge);

ü    voluntarily quitting the job;

ü    the first entrance on the labor-market.

Historical analysis of the unemployment shows that different schools of economic thought propose different policies to address unemployment. Goldin (200) ascertains “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.” We see that various schools have various approaches to this question and all of them can’t find one alternative variant that can improve the situation.

Our society tries to create new methods of unemployment overcoming, but growth of unemployment strongly disturbs economists, as if a situation will and farther get worse at the labor-market, then it will result in the cutback of the consumer spending – basic motive force of the economy growing – and, consequently, will plunge the largest economy of the world in a recession. As unemployment is a serious macroeconomic problem, comes forward the index of macroeconomic instability, the state undertakes measures for a fight against it. For the different types of unemployment, as they are conditioned different reasons, different measures are used. General for all types of unemployment are such measures as: unemployment payments and creation of special services. Altman (2004) declares that the United States Employment Service has an aim to “encompass workforce investment programs and initiatives that provide millions of adult workers with workforce preparation and talent development services, and help employers find the skilled workers they need. Activities promote and facilitate an integrated public workforce system through which a full array of services is offered. These services are available to workers and employers through the national network of One-Stop Career Centers”. It is hard to say now that this service works well or bad because now the whole world is in financial crisis and such economical destabilization greatly influences on all spheres of the life and change situation on the labor-market.

This paragraph will be devoted to the advantages of services that help people to find a job. I understand that many job services face to different problems in their work and I don’t want critique the existing services, because in my opinion they are really effective and all people who are involved in this process try to do their best in chosen area. The system of social defence of unemployment population is created and the permanent monitoring of situation has a place at the labor-market. Such actions allow control the situation and develop effective employment strategies. For example, for labor adaptation of citizens who did not work for a long time, and also for satisfaction of employers’ necessities in labor force at implementation of temporal works, employment services take part in organization of social works. I want also to mention that one of the priorities of activity of services is providing of services to the employers. Employers for employment service execute two social roles:

ü at first, they are social partners on realization of public policy of population employment and provide service employment information about vacant workplaces. In addition, they are a basic link in the employment process;

ü secondly – employers are clients of services, which have the specific requirements in forming of personnel of firms, enterprises, organizations.

Co-operating with more than million employers, employment services conduct seminars on different subjects, directed on perfection of informative and economic co-operation that allow to understand necessities of both side of employment process, I mean people who look for the work and people who look for the workers.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned it is possible to conclude that unemployment is a great problem nowadays but every person have a possibility to influence on this problem displaying initiative and a great wish to help to the unemployed. Exactly I, like a social worker can educate population in the question of work and help to find the appropriate work relatively to person’s abilities and working skills. We know from experience, that in the modern world, taking into account development of new information technologies, many previously insoluble problems successfully find their decisions  only due to the operative co-operation and exchange of information. At the end of my work I want to quote the famous words of William Booth:  “A man’s labor is not only his capital but his life. When it passes it returns never more. To utilize it, to prevent its wasteful squandering, to enable the poor man to bank it up for use hereafter, this surely is one of the most urgent tasks before civilization.”