Disguised Unemployment

Categories: Econ, Financial Theory

Yep, even unemployment can take on a disguise, Clark-Kent style.

Disguised unemployment is when unemployment numbers look good. Employment is high. But productivity is still low. Which means all those recent hires aren't actually contributing to productivity. While they're technically working and getting paid, they're not actually doing anything productive (not that it's their fault, to be fair).

In general terms, disguised unemployment includes anybody who is working well below their capabilities. Put another way, it's all of that lost opportunity cost of workers who could be contributing more to the economy based on their skills and capabilities, but aren't...whether it's their decision, or because the jobs just aren't there.

When does unemployment decide to don part of its face with a mask like the Phantom of the Opera? It's pretty common for disguised unemployment to happen in developing countries that have a surplus of workers. With so much available labor, the market can charge lower wages and soak up a lot of those workers, even if that creates more-than-the-necessary-amount of workers hired.

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finance a la shmoop what is the unemployment rate so negative like

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shouldn't it be the employment rate at least that way we'd have a bigger number

00:13

and bigger is better in the u.s. right well anyway the unemployment rate in

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this country is tracked carefully because it's one of the Canaries in the

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mine shaft giving us an early heads-up on the direction of the economy well [canary hopping in cage in mineshaft]

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jobs are generally highly volatile in a given range and the government copiously

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inspects this data as it affects so many other things principally the costs of

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renting money has set out by the Fed because high employment stimulates

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inflation and low does the opposite well the government's gonna ask is the

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unemployment rate shrinking too fast I eat everyone's getting jobs well if so [government officials in conference]

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then beware inflation is coming which historically has motivated the Fed to

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raise interest rates in response or constrict the supply of cash out there

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and the opposite is true as well one of the big cocktail party conflicts and if

01:01

you find yourself at a cocktail party debating this notion make like the

01:04

Jordan Peele movie and get out but if you can't and you must debate well there

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is a quote natural rate unquote of unemployment of around five or six

01:13

percent yeah zero percent unemployment ain't never

01:16

gonna happen generally the higher the unemployment rate the worse shape the

01:20

economy is in but remember the unemployment rate doesn't tell the whole

01:24

story the government can help create a bunch of temporary or low-paying jobs

01:28

too cosmetically raise the employment rate in the short term like ahead of an [happy government officials in conference]

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election but the quality of those jobs is probably not great like think temp

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workers at the DMV well after a while of longer term unemployment some people [long line at the DMV]

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will just give up hunting for jobs and if they don't even go on indeed or

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Glassdoor looking for work so they're kind of permanently in the unemployment

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numbers so the unemployment rate might seem to be a bit less dire in that case [unemployed people holding up cardboard signs]

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but in fact well there might still be a lot of people who needed jobs out there

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we don't know we're just looking for some numbers to help us direct

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understanding of where the economy has gone and help us then tweak things so

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interest rates are optimized at the inflation numbers that we want to hit

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got it not everyone is qualified to stick that thing on the back of your

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license plate that shows you red yeah a whole lot of government workers I [hand adds stickers on back of license place]

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guess do that now bad times

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