Unemployment
occurs when people are without work and actively seeking work.
According
to the ILO guidelines, a person is unemployed if the person is (a) not working,
(b) Currently available for work and (c) seeking work. Here a person is to be
considered unemployed if he/she during the reference period simultaneously
satisfies being:
(a)
‘Without work’, i.e., were not in paid employment or self-employment as
specified by the international definition
(b)
‘Currently available for work’, i.e., were available for paid employment or
self-employment during the reference period; and
(c)
‘Seeking work’, i.e., had taken specific steps in a specified recent period to
seek paid employment or self-employment.
In
the words of Fairchild, “unemployment is forced and involuntary
separation from remunerative work on the part of the normal wages and normal
conditions.”
According
to Sergeant Florence, “unemployment has been defined as the idleness of persons
able to work.”
Lastly we can say that When a person is failed to get any job and unable to found the means of livelihood, we call him an unemployed person. Thus, unemployment means lack of absence of employment. In other word unemployment is largely concerned with those persons who constitute the labor force of the country, who are able bodied and willing to work, but they are gainfully employed. Unemployment, therefore, is the lack of earning or idleness on the part of a person who is able to work.
What are the types of Unemployment?
As
unemployment is a universal problem and is found in every country more or less,
therefore, it is categorized into a number of types. The chief among them are stated
below:
- Types
of Unemployment
1)
Structural unemployment:
Basically
Bangladesh's unemployment is structural in nature. It is associated with the
inadequacy of productive capacity to create enough jobs for all those able and
willing to work. In Bangladesh not only the productive capacity much below the
needed quantity, it is also found increasing at a slow rate. As against this,
addition to labour force is being made at a first rate on account of the
rapidly growing population. Thus, while new productive jobs are on the
increase, the rate of increasing being low the absolute number of unemployed
persons is rising from year to year.
2)
Disguised unemployment:
Disguised
unemployment implies that many workers are engaged in productive work. For
example, in Indian villages, where most of unemployment exists in this form,
people are found to be apparently engaged in agricultural works. But such
employment is mostly a work sharing device i.e., the existing work is shared by
the large number of workers. In such a situation, even if many workers are
withdrawn, the same work will continue to be done by fewer people.
It
follows that all the workers arte not needed to maintain the existing level of
production. The contribution of such workers to production is nothing. It is
found that the very large numbers of workers on Indian farms actually hinder
agricultural works and thereby reduce production.
3)
Cyclical unemployment:
Cyclical
unemployment in caused by the trade or business cycles. It results from the
profits and loss and fluctuations in the deficiency of effective demand
production is slowed down and there is a general state of depression which
causes unemployment periods of cyclical unemployment is longer and it generally
affects all industries to a greater or smaller extent.
4)
Seasonal unemployment:
Seasonal
unemployment occurs at certain seasons of the year. It is a widespread
phenomenon of Indian villages basically associated with agriculture. Since
agricultural work depends upon Nature, therefore, in a certain period of the
year there is heavy work, while in the rest, the work is lean. For example, in
the sowing and harvesting period, the agriculturists may to engage themselves
day and night.
But
the period between the post harvest and pre sowing is almost workless,
rendering many without work. Thus, seasonal unemployment is largely visible
after the end of agricultural works.
5)
Underemployment:
Underemployment
usually refers to that state in which the self employed working people are not
working according to their capacity. For example, a diploma holder in
engineering, if for wants of an appropriate job, start any business may be said
to be underemployed. Apparently, he may be deemed as working and earning in a
productive activity and in this sense contributing something to production.
But
in reality he is not working to his capability, or to his full capacity. He is,
therefore, not full employed. This type of unemployment is mostly visible in
urban areas.
6)
Open Unemployment:
Open
unemployment is a condition in which people have no work to do. They are able
to work and are also willing to work but there is no work for them. They are
found partly in villages, but very largely in cities. Most of them come form
villages in search of jobs, many originate in cities themselves. Such
employment can be seen and counted in terms of the number of such persons.
Hence
it is called upon unemployment. Open unemployment is to be distinguished from
disguised unemployment and underemployment in that while in the case of former
unemployment workers are totally idle, but in the latter two types of
unemployment they appear to be working and do not seem to be away their time.
7)
Voluntary Unemployment:
Voluntary
unemployment occurs when a working persons willingly withdraws himself from
work. This type of unemployment may be caused due to a number of reasons. For
example, one may quarrel with the employer and resign or one may have permanent
source of unearned income, absentee workers, and strikers and so on. In
voluntary unemployment, a person is out of job of his own desire. She does not
work on the prevalent or prescribed wages. Either he wants higher wages or does
not want to work at all.
8)
Involuntary unemployment:
Involuntary unemployment occurs when
at a particular time the number of worker is more than the number of jobs.
Obviously this state of affairs arises because of the insufficiency or non
availability of work. It is customary to characterize involuntary unemployment,
not voluntary as unemployment proper.