The Use of Unemployment and Vacancy Data in Analysing Unemployment

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONUntil 1975, unemployment in the UK had remained below the 1 million mark for over 30 years. Between 1979 and 1982 it rose from under 1.5 million to over 3 million and has remained there ever since. The 1980s have certainly been a disaster as far as unemployment is concerned and a question of paramount importance to policymakers is whether the government can do anything to reduce unemployment significantly in the foreseeable future. The answer to this question depends on the causes of unemployment and whether these causes can be affected by government action. Unfortunately, the causes of current unemployment are not clearly understood and there is a startling lack of consensus amongst policymakers and their economic advisers over what can (or should) be done to tackle the unemployment problem.One of the issues about which there is substantial disagreement amongst economists is whether unemployment is currently high because of a deficiency in the aggregate demand for goods, or whether it is high for other reasons. These other reasons include : the existence of disincentives to take jobs because unemployment benefit is too high relative to net takehome pay ; a serious mismatch between labour demand and labour supply ; excessively high real wages relative to labour productivity; the sudden structural collapse of large sections of UK manufacturing industry; and a combination of these factors.