Question

What does the term unemployment mean to you? Do a little research and find the current unemployment rate and share with your classmates. What trends do you feel we have seen in the unemployment rate over the past 10 to 20 years. What factors do you feel have influenced these trends?

Answer 1

1> Unemployment is the situation when a person who seeks for job but is unable to find one for himself/herself. Thus, the unemployment rate is the ratio of number of such people and the sum of employed and unemployed people.

2> According to bureau of Labor, US, the current unemployment rate in May, 2020 is 13.3%

Recently, the unemployment rate is high because of the crisis created by CoVid virus.

In the recent 10-20 years, the unemployment rate has two peaks with one peak at the time of Financial crisis at around 10% and another peak is now at 13-14%.

From 2008 to 2019, the unemployment rate has declined over time from a peak of 10% to a modest low of 3.5%

The factor which influences these trends are economic fluctuations, in both the cases because of the fall in the economy, the unemployment rate has changed drastically and it came in 2008 from housing bubble and bank-run and now because of lockdown and Corona virus.