Economics Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Economics - Assignment Example Now, before throwing some light on the importance of government in reducing the rate of unemployment, it is crucial to shed some light on the types and methods of measuring unemployment. The definition of unemployment is quite varying. In simple words, it is a situation where people want jobs but they don’t become able to find any. But, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), if a person is working at least for an hour a week, he is considered employed. Here, definition of employment will help understanding what unemployment is all about. The LFS( Labour Force Survey ) definition of employment is anyone (aged 16 or over) who does at least one hour’s paid work in the week prior to their LFS interview, or has a job that they are temporarily away from (e.g. on holiday). Also included are people who do unpaid work in a family business and people on government supported employment training schemes, in line with ILO definitions [1]. As different unemployment types exist in the real world, it is crucial to use right methods to measure those different types. Unemployment rate is the best way to measure the extent of unemployment in any country. Economists all over the world, give huge importance to the measures of unemployment rate for designing the policies of economic development. The most widely used measure of unemployment rate is mentioned below[2]: Claimant Count: This method was usually used during the 1980s and 1990s. The basic thing about this method is to count those unemployed heads who are receiving unemployment benefits. The good thing is that measurement can be done by using administrative records, which is the reason why you don’t have to suffer from sampling errors. But, it is a fact that many countries are now using other computation methods which is the reason why it is not logical to compare results of this method with other methods. Also, it provides relatively inadequate data as only those people who receive unemployment