unemployment
unemploymentThe state of being unable to sell one's labour-power in the labour-market despite being willing to do so. In practice, unemployment is difficult to identify and measure, because willingness to be employed is partly affected by the extent and nature of demand for one's services. As a result, official definitions imposed by government employment agencies are affected by political theories about the causes of being unwilling or unable to be employed, on the one hand; and, on the other, by the rules allowing registration as out of work and eligible for such welfare benefits as may be on offer.
Unemployment was used by C. Wright Mills as a graphic illustration of the distinction between private troubles and public issues which he considered basic to sociology. Research on the unemployed has repeatedly shown that unemployment is rarely explicable simply as a...
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