Question

Explain unemployment. Mention the type of unemployment and explain any two in detail.

Answer 1

Unemployment means a situation when all able and willing persons of a country do not get suitable opportunities to work. Unemployment negatively impacts the economy of the country. This is because unemployment creates a feeling of hopelessness and depression among unemployed people. Unemployment results in the wastage of human resource as people are not involved in any kind of productive activities. This makes them a liability for the nation.
Generally, any person who is not gainfully employed in any productive activity is called unemployed. Unemployment may be frictional unemployment, structural unemployment, cyclical unemployment, and voluntary and involuntary unemployment.
Broadly, unemployment in India can be classified into two groups. They are:

• i. Rural unemployment: Seasonal unemployment, disguised unemployment, and chronic unemployment.
  
• ii. Urban unemployment: Industrial unemployment and educated unemployment.
  

Seasonal unemployment: Because of the absence of proper irrigation facilities and subsidiary employment opportunities in rural areas, multiple cropping is not possible in most of the rural areas. Hence, these farmers remain idle for about 5 to 7 months in a year. This situation is called seasonal unemployment. In 195051, the gross irrigated area as a percentage of the gross cropped area was only 17.11%. It has been increased to 35.64% in 199293 and yet more than 25% of cultivable land has multiple cropping. It implies that farmers cultivating approximately 75% of land remain involuntarily unemployed for a substantial part of the cropping pattern.
Disguised unemployment: This problem arises because of the excessive pressure of population on Indian agriculture. In the family farming method which is prevalent in India, each family member shares the farm-work and gets a share of the total farm-product. Here, individual family members may think that they engaged in gainful work though may not be contributing anything to the total product. Thus, even if they are withdrawn from cultivation work, the total farm output would remain unchanged. This feature is known as disguised unemployment in rural India.