What is ‘unemployment’, and what are the main features of unemployment policy in the UK today?
Unemployment is a difficult concept to define as work itself can take many forms. For example work can be paid, unpaid, domestic or outside of the home. Even though with difficulties of defining a complex topic such as unemployment, Grint (1998, p36) defines unemployment as a situation of “being out of work” but “available for work”. This shows that even though people are willing and able to work they are unable to find paid work. Unemployment is a very concerning economic and social issue affecting the UK today and historically. According to the office national statistics, UK unemployment has increased from 7000 to 2.56 million. This particularly consists of youth unemployment, such as graduates and youths aged 17 plus who now rate at 21.2% of the unemployment rate, and women whose unemployment has also increased (BBC, 2013).
As Beveridge states the population of those unemployed were supported through the ‘cradle of the grave’ suggesting that the government was giving unending unemployment benefits regardless of whether the population were actively seeking work. Unemployment policy regarding the workfare gained foothold after WW2 with the emergence of the welfare state. Today this is still the main policy for supporting the unemployed population of Britain. Those out of work now need to show that they are actively seeking work and gaining work experience and skills to make them more employable in the future.
As mentioned above, unemployment is a social and economic issue. There are many factors as to why unemployment exists, and why it fluctuates in society. Mainly there are internal and external reasons for this. Internally factors such as education, illness and family can cause unemployment, but also, one can debate more importantly factors such as economic