Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42. Counting the Jobless Measuring unemployment is not as simple as it sounds Few economic indicators are as politically charged as unemployment rates. Britain's Conservative goberment is often accused of having changed its ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.

Counting the Jobless

Measuring unemployment is not as simple as it sounds

Few economic indicators are as politically charged as unemployment rates. Britain's Conservative goberment is often accused of having changed its definitions of unemployment to reduce the published rate. Unemployment rates are also used to judge the tightness of labour markets: declining rates signal a tight market for labour and hence, eventually, pres-sure for higher wages. And they are used to assess the degree of social pressure that is caused by joblessness. To many politicians, particularly in continental Europe, persistently high unemployment rates are a constant reminder of the failure of their economic policies. Yet official measures of unemployment, based on surveys of the labour market, may not be as useful as many think.

To qualify as unemployed in industrialized countries, a person must be without a job, taking active measures to find one and available to start work ( usually immediately ). Some maintain that this definition of unemployment is too loose. They point out that some of those counted as unemployed by official number crunchers may actually be working in the black economy. So high official unemployment rates may not necessarily mean that there is little upward pressure on wages. Others complain that the definition is too restrictive. Many people, such as those who are no longer actively looking for work, are classified as being out of the labour market. In fact, they may still be a big part of the jobless problem. One solution to this would be to use “non-employment” instead. This measure includes not just the unemployed, but other economically inactive people as well. It would capture those who has simply “dropped out” of the labour force, and might be a better guide to the impact of joblessness than standard rates.

The snag with such a measure is that it is too broad to be useful. The “non-employed” include retired people, housewives, students and others who may not be able to work, or may not wish to. Thus, an increase in “non-employment” could even be a good thing – if, for example, it mean that more people were staying on longer in education.

An alternative approach is to try to supplement the coverage of the standard unemployment rate. Many economists reckon that two groups of people, in particular, should be added. These are “discouraged workers” ( those who would like to work, but are not actively seeking a job because they do not think any suitable positions are available ), and “involuntary part-time workers” ( those who are working fewer hours than they would like, or who can find only a part-time job when they want a full time one). Once such discouraged workers added in, the argument goes, the unemployment rate will provide a better measure of any excess supply of labour.

( Adapted from Reading Strategies for the IELTS )