What's the best & the worst type of unemployment

Mr. Wolf was once flipping burgers in Mcdonald. However, maybe because he is stupid, after a while he found himself not suitable for the job. Finally, he quit and looked for a new job. Within a few week, he found a job as a garbage collector. He has experienced a period of frictional unemployment during the few weeks. This is the best type of unemployment type, because it happens very often between two jobs as a worker looks for a new job.


Mr. Wolf is a new immigrant from a foreign country. He worked as a miner before he moved to vancouver. However, mining industry is not popular in Vancouver. As a result, he finds that there's not any suitable job which matches his skills. He is experiencing structural unemployment for a period of time. If he wants to get a job in other industries, he needs to pick up new skills. This is likely to be costly and may take a very long time in order to get him back to labour market. So, structural unemployment is the worst type of unemployment.

Unemployment stats don’t tell whole story

News article source: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com


New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is again lower than the national average but a deeper examination of the unemployment story would show that the statistics fail to disclose the untold number of people working in jobs beneath their skill sets. Bill, a Nashua resident will join the ranks of the underemployed if he doesn't land a high-tech job again soon; and he has little hope of of an IT job coming by then. He can also find a part-time job which he wouldn't have health benefits. To be considered unemployed, a jobless person have been actively looking for a job within the past month, Marshall said. “But someone, say an engineer working at McDonald’s, is still employed,” he said. Bill will have to consider a service industry job if he can't find a full-time position in his field. "He’ll be employed in the government’s eyes but not his."

Related to Chapter Five, this news article talks about how unemployment is defined by government and what is it stated about. In this article, it mentions that " New Hampshire had a 3.7 percent unemployment rate for February. And for the entire year of 2006, the state had a 3.4 percent jobless rate, far lower than the national average of 4.6 percent." The government considers two groups of people when determining a state’s labor force: those employed and those looking for a job. Those labeled as “looking for a job” are people filing for unemployment, as well as estimates of people entering the workforce after completing schooling or returning from being a stay-at-home parent. Adjustments are also made for those leaving the labor force because of retirement or child rearing. To be considered unemployed, a jobless person would have had to have been actively looking for a job within the past month. but the problem is that the unemployment rate do not consider the people who are working unmatched as their level of educations or abilities.
Just as the title of the news article "Unemployment Stats Don't Tell Whole Story", the unemployment rate only reflects partial of the labour market and it is not necessary to be the states of a social wealth. When we look at the level of a community activities, we should not only look at the unemployment. There are many highly educated people who are working unmatched as their level of educations or abilities. These can also be another concern beside the unemployment rate. This is a waste of human resources and we should try to eliminate this situation.