Though there have been several definitions of “voluntary and “involuntary unemployment” in the economics literature, a simpli distinction is often applied. Voluntary unemployment is attributed to the individual’s decisions, whereas involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment in which individual operate. In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary, since it reflects individual search behaviour. Voluntary unemployment includes workers who reject low wage jobs whereas involuntary unemployment includes workers fired due to an economic crisis, industrial decline, company bankruptcy, or organizational restructuring.

On the other hand, cyclical measurement, structural unemployment, and classical unemployment are largely involuntary in nature. However, the existence of structural unemployment may reflect choices made by the unemployed in the past, while classical (natural) unemployment may result from the legislative and economic choices made by labour unions or political parties. So, in practice, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary and involuntary unemployment is hard to draw.


Classical or real-wage unemployment occurs when real wages for a job are set above the market-clearing level, causing the number of job-seeker to exceed the numbers of vacancies.

Many economists have argued that unemployment increases the more the government intervenes in to the economy to try to improve the conditions of those without jobs. For example, minimum wage laws raise the cost of laborers with few skills to above the market equilibrium, resulting in people who wish to work at the going rate but cannot wage enforced is greater than their value as workers becoming unemployed. Laws restricting layoffs made business less likely to hire in the first place, as hiring become more risky, leaving many young people unemployed an unable to find work.



With cyclical unemployment, the number of unemployed workers exceed the number of job vacancies, so that even if full employment were attained and all open jobs were filled, some workers would still remain unemployed. Some associate cyclical unemployment with frictional unemployment because the factors the causes the frictions are partially caused by cyclical variables.



Structural unemployment may also be encouraged to rise by persistent cyclical unemployment: if an economy suffers from long –lasting low aggregate demand, it means that many of the unemployed become disheartened, while their skills (including job-searching skills) become “rusty” and obsolete. Problems with debt may lead to homelessness and a fall into the various circle of poverty.


Much technological unemployment, due to the replacement of workers with machines, might be counted as structural unemployment. Alternatively, technological unemployment might refer to the way in which steady increases in labour productivity mean that fewer workers are needed to produce the same level of output every year. The fact that aggregate demand can be raised to deal with this problem suggests that this problem is instead one of cyclical unemployment. The demand side must grow sufficiently quickly to absorb not only the growing labour force but also the workers made redundant by increased labour productivity.

Seasonal unemployment may be seen as a kind of structural unemployment, since it is a type of unemployment that is linked to certain kinds of jobs (construction work, migration farm work). The most-cited official unemployment measures erase this kind of unemployment from the statistics using “seasonal unemployment”techniques. The resulting in substantial, permanent structural unemployment.





The frictions in the labor market are sometimes illustrated graphically with a Beveridge curve, a downward-sloping, convex curve that shows a correlation between the unemployment rate on one axis and the vacancy rate on the other. Changes in the supply of or demand for labor cause movements along this curve. An increase (decrease) in labor market frictions will shift the curve outwards (inwards).



The statistic also does not count the “underemployed” – those working fewer hours than they would prefer or in a job that doesn’t make good use of their capabilities. In addition, those who are of working age but are currently in full-time education are usually not considered unemployed in government statistics. Traditional unemployed native societies, who survive by gathering, hunting, herding, and farming in wilderness areas, may or may not be counted in unemployment statistics. Official statistics often underestimate unemployment rates because of hidden unemployment.


This is normally defined, for instance in European Union statistics, as unemployment lasting for longer than one year. It is an important indicator of social exclusion. The United States Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) reports this as 27 weeks or longer. Long-term unemployment can result in older workers taking early retirement; in the United States, taking reduced social security benefits at age 62..

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