BNET Business Dictionary

Business Definition for: Unemployment

  • the situation in which some members of a country's labor force are willing to work but cannot find employment

Wiktionary Definition for: Unemployment

  • The fact of having no job; joblessness.

Additional Resources

Will There Be a 'New Normal' For Unemployment?
In my last post, I wrote about the longer than usual time period I think it will take for unemployment to return to its normal, or full employment level, but I didn't define what normal unemployment is. An important question for policymakers is whether there will be "a new normal"...
Tags: Job, Unemployment, Worker, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Mark Thoma
Blog posts 2009-11-11
Unemployment in Japan Will Be Above 6% by August
Ivan Kitov submits: Since the beginning of 2009, the unemployment rate in Japan has been on rise. The Statistical Bureau of Japan has just announced a severe increase in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up to 5.2% in May. There was only 4.1% unemployment in December 2008. We...
Tags: Japan, Ivan Kitov
External links 2009-06-30
Lenders Say Unemployment and Mortgage Refinancing Don't Mix
Last week's bit of unwelcome news: Michigan's unemployment rate has shot up to 12.6 percent in March. At least that's the official unemployment rate. The unofficial unemployment rate (which includes everyone who has stopped looking for a job, or who is working part-time instead of full-time, or who gave up and...
Tags: Unemployment, Mortgages, Recruitment & Selection, Finance, Capital Structures, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Ilyce Glink
Blog posts 2009-04-20
Underreported Unemployment: Why Those Jobs May Not Come Back
Today's weekly report of new unemployment claims showed what appears to be a big improvement -- a sharp drop to 522,000. But the seasonal adjustment factors are distorting our perspective, and the numbers are not as good as they look. We should probably be adjusting our long-term perspective, too, say...
Tags: Job, Recession, Economist, Unemployment, Adjustment, Adjustment Factor, Recruitment & Selection, Currency & Foreign Exchange, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Finance, John Keefe
Blog posts 2009-07-16
Unemployment Report: It Just Ain't Labor's Day
So the headline number on unemployment is 9.7%. That alone might be enough to send people into the last weekend of summer with the sense that the economy has a long winter ahead of it. But ugly as that 0.3 percentage point jump in the closely watched number is, a...
Tags: Job, Hour, Recovery, Recession, Economy, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Eric Schurenberg
Blog posts 2009-09-04
Some things you should know about those unemployment numbers
The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its monthly Employment Situation report this morning, and you've surely already seen the headlines about 524,000 in job losses and a 7.2% employment rate.  But I thought it would be helpful to go through the basics, as in times like these lots of people...
News items 2009-08-07
Consider These Conditions When Using the Unemployment Rate as 'Any Kind' of Indicator
Investors and the media (CNBC) are too quick to affirmatively state that “unemployment is a lagging indicator.” The unemployment rate is not so much a “lagging indicator” as it is a reflection of investors’ past behavior to use it to predict the beginning of a large stock market recovery....
Tags: US Market, Raymond Chung
External links 2009-07-10
Australian Unemployment Rate 5.8% in Oct
A strong rise in total employment in October will give the Reserve Bank of Australia RBA confidence to lift interest rates for a third straight month in December, economists say.The nation added 24,500 jobs in October, according to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics published on Thursday.The median...
Tags: Job, Unemployment Rate, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, AAP
News items 2009-11-12
Rising Unemployment Shows Where the Economy Stands
James Hamilton submits: Is there anything good to say about Friday's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the U.S. unemployment rate jumped up to 6.1% while seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls declined by another 84,000 jobs? Well, here's one thing. It gives us some real clarity as to...
Tags: US Market
External links 2008-09-07
Past and prospective causes of high unemployment
Twenty years ago, on the eve of the first of the great post-Bretton-Woods recessions, unemployment did not appear to be a major problem for advanced economies. Among what would later be dubbed the G7 nations, the United States had the highest unemployment rate at 5.5 percent; but very little of...
Tags: Benefits, FINANCE, inequality, inflation, OECD, salary, U.S., unemployment, Unemployment, worker
Research articles 1994-10-01
Unemployment Watch: Mixed Unemployment Signals Amid Job Loss in March
WASHINGTON, April 4 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following "Unemployment Watch" report was released today by the Institute for Women's Policy Research: Unemployment Watch: Mixed Unemployment Signals Amid Job Loss in March By Vicky Lovell, Ph.D., and Meghan Salas The unemployment rate among women heads of families remained much higher than...
Tags: job, recession, U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment, Unemployment, Watch, women, worker
Research articles 2003-04-04
International unemployment rates: how comparable are they? - comparing US unemployment rate with that of other countries
Adjusted to U.S. concepts, the Canadian unemployment rate is reduced by 1 percentage point; effects of adjustments on European unemployment rates are smaller Comparative unemployment rates are used frequently in international analyses of labor markets and are cited often in the press. In the United States, the comparative levels...
Tags: adjustment, Annual, Beginning, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Canada, Civilian, Exhibit, job, jobseeker, Labor, layoff, Monthly, OECD, Search, survey, Sweden, U.S., unemployment, Unemployment, Working
Research articles 2000-06-01
Part-Time Work Helps Hold Down Unemployment
The March report on US employment was grim, and is certain to become worse. The unemployment insurance report on April 9 showed another 600,000 new claims, and U.S. corporations already have announced something like 150,000 future job cuts, according to outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas. But...
Tags: John Keefe
Blog posts 2009-04-13
The Case for Depression, Part 1: Unemployment
Moses Kim submits: It's pretty intuitive that recovery isn't possible without sustained improvements in the rate of unemployment. The most recent unemployment reading for May was 9.4%--bad yes, but a far cry from the 25% levels and soup lines we saw during the Great Depression. Now let's dig...
Tags: US Market, Moses Kim
External links 2009-06-18
Predicting Inflation, Unemployment in Germany
Ivan Kitov submits: Abstract Potential links between inflation, pt, and unemployment, UEt, in Germany have been examined. There exists a consistent conventional Phillips curve despite some changes in monetary policy. This Phillips curve is characterized by a negative relation between inflation and unemployment with the latter leading the...
Tags: Seeking Alpha, Ivan Kitov
External links 2009-06-29
Unemployment Headline Is Negative, but Take a Look at Those Leading Indicators
The full-month employment report for June was not attractive - June produced a net loss of 467,000 jobs, much higher than in May, and well above even the pessimistic forecasts. The unemployment rate rose as well, to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent in May. But these measures are all trailing...
Tags: John Keefe
Blog posts 2009-07-02
Spain: Highest Unemployment Rate in EU at 18.7%
David Hunkar submits: On Thursday the BLS released the unemployment data for the month of June. A total of 467,000 jobs were lost in June and the unemployment rate remained almost the same at 9.5%. The Eurostat also released the unemployment report for the EU but for...
Tags: Seeking Alpha, David Hunkar, CurrencyShares Euro Trust
External links 2009-07-06
No Jobs For The Boys: Unemployment Hits Men Harder
With many economists now cautiously predicting an economic recovery of sorts on the near horizon, it would be tempting to assume that, from now on, the only way is up. The inconvenient truth, however, is that UK unemployment -- particularly for men -- will continue to rise...
Tags: Job, Men, Government, Gender And Diversity, Human Resources, Tim Tonkin
Blog posts 2009-10-16
Weekly Unemployment Claims: 26 Year High
The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims: In the week ending Dec. 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 586,000, an increase of 30,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 556,000. The 4-week moving average was 558,000, an increase of 13,750 from the previous week's...
News items 2009-08-07
How Should Unemployment Benefits Respond to the Business Cycle?
This paper discusses the nature of responses in an optimal unemployment insurance UI program. Unemployment insurance programs balance the benefits of consumption smoothing for unemployed workers against the disincentive effects of unemployment benefits. A simple extension of benefits, exists automatically in the system in the United States, provides both poorer...
Tags: Unemployment Insurance, Benefits, Human Resources
White papers 2003-01-02
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