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Unemployment in the United States Unemployment is a serious social phenomenon which occurs both in well developed countries and in developing ones. Unemployment is unavoidable and the level of the country development is defined by how authorities succeed to manage it. The authorities of the well developed countries have the appropriate HR policies targeted to reduce the level of unemployment providing the appropriate financial support of unemployed, their training, encouraging the creation of the new working places etc. The unemployment annual rate in the United States was 5. 1 % in 2005 and it is forecasted to be 5. 5 % for 2006. 1 There are several causes of unemployment. They are all connected more or less with the economic development of a country or a region, and what is more, they are defined by such development. The employment and consequently unemployment are the market categories but at the same time they are social categories as well.
As a market category unemployment is developing according to the economic rules. As a social category it may cause a number of negative consequences. The uncertainty, fear to loose the job may cause serious psychological disorders and lead to the raise of criminality. The unemployed people who do not have the means to existence may commit various crimes aimed to get the necessary means. The globalization of economy brought additional challenges to the labor market both globally and in the United States in particularly. The attractive economic conditions and cheap labor made the big corporations shift their manufacturing sites to China and other countries of Asia and Eastern Europe thus reducing a number of working places in the countries of business origin and in the United States in particular.
The most vulnerable category of unemployed is that of younger people. Normally young people get their first job experience when they are teenagers as a part time job activity. When young people leave school, those who have attained a higher level of education are more likely to be employed. For example, in 2003, among 19 -year olds who were out of school, 68 percent of those who graduated from high school had jobs, compared with 50 percent of those who had not graduated. 2 Such part-time labor activity of the students influences the workforce market especially in the segments where the low skilled labor is required.
The part-time working students are normally paid lower than the adults and this is more attractive for employers. This reduces the job opportunities for low skilled adults. As it was mentioned above the overseas outsourcing impacts the situation on the US labor market negatively. The shifting of jobs from the US to other countries has been a hot button issue in American politics.
Lou Dobbs made the Exporting of America a regular feature of his nightly news show, and states like Ohio suddenly came up for grabs in the presidential race when Kerry was unable to offer a motivating vision for the tens of thousands of workers who had watched their good jobs and their economic hopes and futures disappear in the last decade. Throughout the world, US and foreign-owned multinationals are simultaneously shifting production from high-wage countries to multiple low-wage destinations, across nearly every industry and market. Massachusetts, always ahead of the curve in US economic history, has played a similar role in the pattern of global outsourcing. 3 The development of the Internet and other modern media opened the new opportunities for the remote work and the process of job outsourcing has become easier. The modern communications opened the possibilities for overseas programmers to get employed by the US companies. Relatively low paid Indian, Chinese and Eastern European programmers being employed by the American companies reduce the job opportunities in the United States considerably. The shift of high tech-production to South Eastern Asia and Eastern Europe has another negative side.
The goods are returning back to the United States at a cheaper cost thus competing with those manufactured in the US and having high cost because of a difference in the labor cost. Such shift impacts the national economy negatively. Local products loose the competition because of the higher production cost. Unemployment is one of the central issues of economics.
Unemployment has certain costs for the society. Some of the likely costs of unemployment for society include increased poverty, crime, political instability, mental health problems, and diminished health standards. 4 Joblessness affects an individual greatly. In the social aspect the unemployed looses his or her connections with the colleagues thus getting into social isolation. This may lead to the mental depression and distress.
The necessity to pay current bills leads to the debts accumulation. The availability of health insurance especially in the United States is linked to holding a job. The welfare programs provided by the government are not everlasting and stop supporting the unemployed person sooner or later. Another cost of unemployment is that a person has to take any job he may find even if it is of a lower qualification.
This leads to the loss of his professional skills. This also leads to his shift in the social hierarchy. He has to join the layer of the society which is lower than that he was considered to be a member of. This fact though ordinary in its nature could be painful for the individual and lead to his social isolation. This is an argument in favor of providing the unemployed insurance. It could be better for the entire economy to provide the high skill employee with the financial support for a certain period of time than to push him to take low skilled job which may lead to his disqualification.
Unemployment impacts the employed. They are living in fear to loose their job. It may lead to disintegration of the business and manufacturing teams giving the employers unfair instruments of promoting the insiders and creating the additional obstacles for outsiders. The unemployment as a phenomenon is normally associated with the capitalism economy. It was assumed that the unemployment is absent in such countries as for example former USSR or modern Cuba and North Korea. But the employment system of the Communism block countries was characterized by the artificial creation of the working places on the expense of the state budget and actually was a kind of latent or hidden unemployment.
Unemployment may lead to the serious psychological distress. Recent studies show that up to 40 % of unemployed people suffered psychological distress. 5 Social life is very important for people. People are social in their nature. The employment is a social category; it provides the necessary level of socialization. The employment makes the following categories of experience inevitable: it imposes a time structure on the waking day; it compels contacts and shared experiences with others outside the nuclear family; it demonstrates that there are goals and purposes which are beyond the scope of an individual but require a collectivity; it imposes status and social identity through the division of labor in modern employment; it enforces activity. Some scholars mark the direct connection between the rates of unemployment and criminality.
Unemployment leads to poverty. The overwhelming majority of poor people are not criminals, but all street criminals are poor. They tend to be illiterate, dysfunctional, unemployable, alcoholic, chemical dependent, drug addicted... Crime in this society is fuelled by the poor.
Whoever is at the bottom of the ladder fuels street crime. And over-laying all of this is our continuing inability to tackle the black dilemma-which is one of exclusion, unemployment, criminality. 6 Still such dependence of the rate of criminality on the unemployment is rather questionable. It could be true while speaking about the street crimes, i. e. crimes related to robbery, violence etc. Such phenomenon may occur due to the lack of proper education, general demoralization of the poor districts, but at the same time there are a lot of crimes committed at the areas of economy which do not have any links to the poor districts.
It is better to say that the poor districts where the unemployed people live are characterized by a certain rate of street criminality in a similar way as the districts of the financial and business centers may be characterized by the relatively higher rate of crimes connected with the financial and business machinations. Unemployment is a concern of a Government. It is economic category and economy is regulated through the Acts passed by the Congress and Government is in charge for enforcing the Acts adopted by the Congress. There is an unemployment insurance system targeted to aid the unemployed in the USA. The Unemployment Compensation Program is established to insure workers against loss of wages during times of temporary unemployment. It is neither welfare nor a relief program, but rather an insurance program for the benefit of qualified unemployed workers 7 The American Unemployment Insurance System is financed by the mixture of state and federal tax and aimed to provide temporal purchasing power for those who are unemployed involuntary during a short period of time.
It could be considered as a temporal measure to support the involuntary unemployed to overcome crisis connected with the unemployment. The temporally unemployed have the option either to accept the offer from the organizations engaged with the employment or search for a job themselves. There are various regulations concerning the people who are eligible to get the benefits from the Unemployment Insurance but basic guiding principle is that any worker who had previous working experience and did not become jobless on his own fault or interest can receive benefits. The principle height of the benefits should be, referring to the performance principle 50 % of the former earned wage or salary. 8 The American Unemployment Insurance system is aimed to support temporarily the dominating factor of the free market, potential consumers.
It also has great significance as a macro economic regulator. It is well known that economy may be developed well if there is a stable demand of goods and services, i. e. there are consumers possessing purchasing power and it is concern of the government to support this demand, i. e. consumers during the temporal periods of crisis.
Citation Arthur N. Jensen Congressional Budget Office Stephanie Luce USA & Colombia Factbook's The Jobs Letter Kayleen M. Hazlehurst Maine Department of Labor Michael Rosch Bibliography Arthur N. Jensen, Economic Forecast for the United States, Sacramento Forecast Project, California State University, Sacramento, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006 The Congress of the United States. Congressional Budget Office. What Is Happening to Youth Employment Rates? , November 2004, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006 Stephanie Luce, Capital Mobility and Job Loss in Massachusetts: A Look at Corporate Restructuring, Production Shifts, and Outsourcing, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, April 28, 2005, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006 Unemployment rates in the United States, USA & COLOMBIA FACTBOOKS, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006 Unemployment.
A Mental Health Issue, The Jobs Letter No. 24 / 9 September 1995, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006 Kayleen M. Hazlehurst, Opportunity and Desire: Making Prevention Relevant to the Criminal and Social Environment, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006 Maine Department of Labor, quoted from The Unemployment Insurance in the USA by Michael Rosch, available at web retrieved 18. 05. 2006
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Research essay sample on Unemployment In The United States
