Exam 15: Unemployment

Consider two people who are currently out of work. Tim is not looking for work because there have been many job cuts where he lives and he doesn't think it likely that he will find work. Bev is not currently looking for work, but she would like a job and she has looked for work in the past. The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers

If the natural rate of unemployment is 5.2 percent and the actual rate of unemployment is 5.7 percent, then by definition there is

Unemployment generated by the existence of labor unions is structural unemployment and so contributes to the natural rate of unemployment.

Which of the following do unions not cause?

Monique is the newly appointed CEO of a company that manufactures external hard drives on an assembly line. Her staff has told her that the output the firm produces, given the number of workers employed, indicates that some workers may be shirking. According to efficiency wage theory, what should she do?

Which of the following is a source of frictional unemployment?

Someone who is without work but is not looking for work is included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "unemployed" category.

Which of the following is an explanation for the existence of frictional unemployment?

Causes of the changing role of women in American society over the past several decades include new technologies that have reduced the amount of time required to complete routine household tasks, improved birth control, and changing political and social attitudes.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' U-1 measure of joblessness is smaller than its U-6 measure of joblessness.

Which of the following is not correct?

When a minimum-wage law forces the wage to remain above the level that balances supply and demand, the result is a shortage of labor.

According to 2009 data on the U.S. population, which of the following groups of teenagers (ages 16-19) had the highest unemployment rate?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2005 that there were 28.19 million people over age 25 who had no high school degree or its equivalent, 11.73 million of whom were employed and 1.04 million of whom were unemployed. What were the labor-force participation rate and the unemployment rate for this group?

Unions are often thought to cause conflict between different groups of workers -- between the insiders who benefit from high union wages and the outsiders who do not get the union jobs.

Who of the following is counted as unemployed by the BLS?

Which of the following is not a cause of the decline in the U.S. men's labor-force participation rate over the past several decades?

Government-run employment agencies and public training programs both seek to reduce frictional unemployment.

Frictional unemployment is

When job search is the explanation for unemployment, workers are searching for the jobs that best suit their tastes and skills, but when the wage is above the equilibrium level, the quantity of labor supplied exceeds the quantity of labor demanded, and workers are unemployed because they are waiting for jobs to open up.