Stagnant unemployment: forms and consequences

No matter how pathetic it may sound, labor is one of the most important aspects of human life. When working, a person not only has the opportunity to receive means of subsistence, but also to realize his talents and develop. Despite this, the number of unemployed is growing every year. Let's find out why this happens, and what kind of unemployment is stagnant. And also consider its consequences.

What is called unemployment?

Before you consider what stagnant unemployment is, you should find out who is called unemployed.

This category includes citizens who do not have a constant source of income (social benefits, benefits and subsidies are not) and work. Unemployed are also considered to be those who are looking for a place of employment or have long abandoned such attempts.

It is worth noting that not all non-working people belong to this category. For example, these cannot be considered:

• seniors;
• disabled people;
• children under 16 years old;
• convicted and imprisoned;
• full-time students.

At the same time, there is a whole group of citizens who receive income, which, by law, are still considered unemployed:

1. Those who work without formalization.
2. Interns.
3. Freelancers and craftsmen.
4. Farmers without official formal status.
5. People living on dividends from bank deposits.

From the foregoing, we can conclude that from the point of view of the law, the unemployed is a person who does not have official employment. It is sad to realize, but due to the imperfection of the law, many workers (for one reason or another unable to obtain official status) are considered unemployed.

What types of unemployment exist

Having considered what unemployment is, it is worth finding out what the main types of unemployment are. There are five of them.

1. Frictional. Short-term unemployment due to job changes.
2. Seasonal Most common in resort areas and agriculture.
3. Institutional. The creation by the state of conditions for the unemployed is better than for the working population. For example, low salaries with high benefits.
4. Cyclic. It is characteristic for crisis periods in the economy of the country and the world.
5. Structural. Occurs when the employee’s specialty is not in demand, and he has to change qualifications.

In some publications, the types of unemployment are also considered stagnant. However, this is not true, since it is not a species, but a form of this phenomenon.

Forms of unemployment

Let's look at what forms are:

• Open. The case when unemployed citizens are registered on labor exchanges, and their number can be counted.
• Hidden. The form in which the worker officially has work, but due to a reduction in production or hours, does not really receive wages or is generally forcibly sent on leave at his own expense.
• Fluid. Occurs during economic crises.
• Stagnant unemployment.
• Voluntary In this case, the citizen deliberately terminates his labor activity for a number of reasons.

What is “stagnant unemployment”

This form of unemployment, when a person cannot officially find a job for more than 18 months.

In practice, this does not necessarily mean that he has not worked for all these 1.5 years. Perhaps at this time a person trained several times at various enterprises, but for one reason or another could not get a place there.

Causes

Stagnant unemployment is about 35% of all forms of this phenomenon. This is an impressive figure. It is sad to admit, but stagnant unemployment is most characteristic among the inhabitants of small towns and villages. Moreover, such sad statistics not only in the countries of the former USSR, but also in the USA and other developed countries.

Let's look at the causes of this phenomenon:

• The most common among them is the lack of jobs in the region due to the closure or reprofiling of the main enterprise. For example, a weaving factory operates in a small town. In recent years, there have been fewer orders due to poor product quality or its inconsistency with modern consumer needs. There are no funds for the conversion or replacement of obsolete equipment. And after a few years, the company closes. At the same time, the majority of town residents who worked at the factory become unemployed, as there is no other enterprise in this village.

• Low wages. When it comes to big cities or even megacities, there the level of stagnant, and indeed any other unemployment, is lower. The fact is that in such places there are many enterprises, and between them there is a struggle for qualified personnel. Therefore, the level of salaries here is an order of magnitude higher than in villages and small towns. In the latter, on the contrary, usually entrepreneurs artificially lower their salaries, as they have few competitors and know that there is simply no other place for specialists to work. In turn, workers do not want to work for a penny and prefer to exist on unemployment benefits, or to interrupt casual earnings.
• Lack of formalization. Quite often, employers seek to save on taxes and simply do not officially arrange their employees or dismiss them without their knowledge, retroactively. In the first case, a person can work for years, but continue to have unemployed status. In the second, he may not even know that he does not have an official status at this enterprise.
• Schedule. In a market economy, employers seek to get the most out of their workers. Therefore, they are often offered a rather tight schedule, forcing them to work 10 hours 6-7 days a week, excluding official state holidays. This schedule does not allow the employee to fully relax in order to recover, as well as grow professionally.

Consequences of Stagnant Unemployment

The considered form of unemployment is one of the most destructive. Indeed, unlike voluntary, it refers to the compelled. So what are the consequences of long-term unemployment?

• First of all, this is a loss of qualification. After all, for a long time without working in a specialty, a person loses some skills.
• The decline in living standards. Without a permanent source of income of more than 1.5 years, any citizen is inevitably doomed to poverty.
• Depression. Many believe that stagnant unemployment characterizes that part of the population that does not want to work on their own. Indeed, for 1.5 years you can at least somehow find a job, and who could not - a parasite and a lazy person. Such public condemnation quite often drives depressed citizens who are not able to find a job at all or do it officially. As a result, a person ceases to believe in himself and often gives up, finding solace in alcoholism or embarking on a criminal path.
• The transformation of the unemployed into an asocial personality. Without a constant income, a person loses the opportunity to fully live in society.

Unemployment and Moms

Very often, housewives are cited as examples of stagnant unemployment. The classic situation looks like this: after giving birth to a child and reaching the age of 3 years, the mother does not go to work, but becomes a housewife.

On the one hand, this situation looks like voluntary unemployment, but in reality this is not always the case. From the point of view of any employer, women with children are an undesirable worker. Unlike others, she has twice as many chances to go on sick leave (not only because of her illness, but also because of her childhood).

As a rule, mothers do not have the opportunity to work on weekends or often stay after working hours. In addition, firing a working mother is always more difficult than a childless woman. Although often employers receive tax benefits from the state for providing a place for mothers. And if you break off labor relations with her earlier than the agreed date, the allocated funds will have to be returned to the treasury.

For these and other reasons, it is often difficult for mothers to find a job.

Another nuance is the fact that for the full care of the child, mothers prefer to work not full time. And finding such a job in small towns and villages is usually problematic. In this regard, many mothers often work informally, which means, from the point of view of the law, they are unemployed, although in practice they are not.

Problems with unemployment among students, disabled people, foreigners and former prisoners

In addition to mothers, there are a number of categories of the population that more often than others suffer from stagnant unemployment:

• Part-time or evening students. Unlike students in a hospital, they do not apply to the employed population. So, if they do not have official employment, they are considered unemployed. Here are just students who leave for the session several times a year, not in a hurry to hurry to find a job.

• Although people with disabilities are entitled to pension payments from the state, many of them do not want to be a burden and want to work fully. However, employers are in no hurry to employ them.
• Foreigners. It is very difficult for this category of the working-age population to find an official job without proper permission. Sometimes they are characterized by stagnant unemployment due to the fact that such a person’s diploma is not recognized in the country where he currently lives.
• Former prisoners. Because of their criminal record, there is great public prejudice. And even those of them who would like to take the path of correction conceived do not have such an opportunity.