Eco102 Transportation Logistics Management

Please respond to both students separately with a minimum of 100 words each.

Original Post:

What are the three types of unemployment? Unemployment is seen by some as undesirable. Are all three types of unemployment undesirable? Could the advent of the Internet completely eliminate frictional unemployment? Are all three types of unemployment undesirable? Explain.
 

Student Response 

Angela

There are three main types of unemployment.  The three types are frictional, cyclical, and structural.  Structural unemployment is probably one of the most common types of unemployment seen in the last few decades.  With technology advancing, skills the were once in high demand (ie. Kodak photos) are no longer relevant in everyday life.  This is also one of the hardest for anybody to control because nobody can predict or stop the development of new inventions.  Frictional unemployment is when somebody is temporarily unemployed because they are learning a new skill or waiting to take a new higher paying job.  Numbers in frictional unemployment also take seasonal layoffs into account.  Cyclical unemployment is the third and probably least desirable type of unemployment and the most commonly thought about kind.  This type of unemployment is caused by economic downturns, like recessions.
 
I do not personally think that frictional unemployment is undesirable if it’s for a period of time to learn a new skill and further your ability to grow through life.  Where I don’t think the internet is capable of eliminating ALL frictional unemployment but, I do think that the internet and distance learning allow people to more easily remain in the workforce while they pursue something such as a degree or new skill.

Latosha

Hello Class, 
There are three main types of unemployment: structural, frictional and cyclical. The first two make up the natural unemployment rate. The third rises when demand falls, usually during a recession. Some economists define as many as five additional types of unemployment, such as seasonal and classical. 
Structural unemployment is when shifts occur in the economy that creates a mismatch between the skills workers have and the skills needed by employers. 
An example is when; industry fires machinery workers and replaces them with robots. The workers need to learn how to manage the robots that replaced them. Those that don’t need retraining for other jobs or will face long-term structural unemployment. 
Frictional unemployment is when workers leave their old jobs but haven’t yet found new ones. Most of the time workers leave voluntarily, either because they need to move, or they’ve saved up enough money to allow them to look for a better job. 
Cyclical unemployment is not part of the natural unemployment rate. It’s caused by the contraction phase of the business cycle. That’s when demand for goods and services fall dramatically, forcing businesses to lay off large numbers of workers to cut costs. 
Cyclical unemployment tends to create more unemployment. This is because the laid-off workers have less money to buy the things they need, further lowering demand. 
A long recession often creates structural unemployment. If workers stay unemployed for too long, their skills have likely become outdated. Unless they are willing and able to take a lower-level, unskilled job, they may stay unemployed even when the economy recovers. If this happens, structural unemployment leads to a higher rate of natural unemployment.  
There will always be some level of unemployment, even in a healthy economy.