causes and types of unemployment

Frictional unemployment: This is a short-term type of unemployment that occurs when workers are transitioning between jobs. It reflects the time taken to match workers with suitable vacancies and is often considered part of the natural rate of unemployment in a healthy economy.
- Voluntary unemployment: Arises when individuals choose not to accept available jobs at the prevailing wage rate, possibly due to personal preferences or expectations of better opportunities.
- Search unemployment: Occurs when workers reject initial job offers to search for positions that better match their skills, location preferences, or salary expectations.
- Casual unemployment: Affects workers in irregular employment patterns, such as those in construction, acting, or freelancing, who experience intermittent periods without work.
- Seasonal unemployment: Results from fluctuations in demand tied to specific times of the year, for example, increased need for lifeguards in summer or farm workers during harvest seasons.
Structural unemployment: This emerges from fundamental shifts in the economy’s structure, creating a mismatch between workers’ skills and available jobs, often requiring retraining or relocation to resolve.
- Technological unemployment: Caused by the adoption of labour-saving technologies or automation that displaces workers, such as machinery replacing manual assembly line jobs.
- Regional unemployment: Concentrated in specific geographic areas where declining industries, like coal mining in certain regions, lead to persistent job losses without local alternatives.
- International unemployment: Stems from global competition, where domestic industries lose demand to cheaper or more efficient foreign producers, resulting in job cuts.
Cyclical unemployment (also known as demand-deficient unemployment): This type is linked to economic downturns, where insufficient aggregate demand leads to output below the full-employment level, causing widespread job losses across sectors.

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