Essay Sample on Macro-Economics: Unemployment

Introduction

Over the last couple of years, unemployment rates have been increasing with the automation of processes in industries and factories. This has caused many people to lose their source of daily income. The high unemployment rates in the society will result in an increase in the number of cases of social evils like theft and killings. In an attempt to stop this eventuality, the government passed a law that enabled people who are unemployed to receive weekly benefits in order to cater for the living expenses of the people out of their jobs. These weekly benefits have gone a long way in helping the jobless to be able to live better lives than if there were no benefits at all. However, there are a couple of requirements that one must fulfil in order to be eligible for these benefits. In this paper I will analyze the different types of unemployment and whether or not these types of unemployment are eligible for these benefits.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Marcelle has been laid off from the firm that she used to work in because of the economic recession. This is a perfect example of cyclical unemployment. This is the type of unemployment that happens when the economy experienced a recession and many people lose their jobs as a result. According to the unemployment compensation law, a person is eligible to receive unemployment benefits if the factors that resulted in him being unemployed were beyond his control. In this case, the economic shifts and changes are beyond the control of Marcelle and as a result she is eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

Francine worked part time at a ski resort during the winter season. When the winter season is gone, she is unemployed. She states that she is not willing to do any other work for the time that the ski resort is closed. She also states that she would apply again to the ski resort once the winter season commences. This is a perfect example of frictional unemployment. This is the type of unemployment that someone undergoes while looking for a job. For example when students graduate from college and have to look for a job for say five months, during that time they are frictionally unemployed. Here, Francine is not eligible to receive unemployment benefits. This is because when it is not winter season and she is not working at the ski resort, she does not want and does not look for any other source of employment.

Another case is the case of Beauvoir. She had been working as a secretary for several years. She was good at her job especially typing. One of her undoing was that she was not computer literate. When time came to introduce some new computers into the office that she worked, she was unable to use them and as a result she lost her job to a computer savvy person. This is an example of structural unemployment. This happens when there is not demand for the skills of a certain employee in the work place. Beauvoir's skills with a typewriter were no longer needed as the office had moved on to a more tech savvy era. This type of unemployment happens often due to new technology and the mechanization of operations in factories and industries. Beauvoir is eligible to receive unemployment benefits from the government. This is because she was willing to work but the factors that resulted in her losing her job were beyond her control.

Dominic used to work full time as a hair dresser in Cincinnati. He quit his job last week to move to New York. This is not classified as one of the types of unemployment. Dominic had a job that used to pay him well but he decided to leave all that behind and travel to New York. If he becomes unemployed in New York, he brought that upon himself and the government will not help him out. One of the rules of the unemployment benefits act is that someone who quit his job and cannot provide a solid reason why he did so is not eligible for the benefits. In this case, Dominic's reason for quitting his job is so that he could travel to New York. This is not a good enough reason to convince the government to write you checks every week.

With the increase in the number of companies that are making their processes and production automated, the number of people that are going to lose their jobs can only increase. This increase in the number of people that are unemployed will lead to man people resorting to crime in order to kill boredom and to get a source of livelihood. The government has tried to step in to reduce the amount of crime happening because of the lack of employment. This is through the use of unemployment benefits. These benefits go a long way in making people without jobs have a source of livelihood and as a result the crime rate will reduce. However. There is still a long way to go if the government is to be successfully with this project.