What is the unemployment rate at full employment?

Question

what is it

Answer 1

That's a tricky question.

"Full employment" would mean everyone who wanted a job and/or deserved a job had one at that time. But these are two very different totals.

Then, there's the fact that just because you have "a job" it isn't necessarily meaningful, desirable, well-paying, personally satisfying or something really useful to human beings that you're doing.

For instance, if some tyranny's leader declared a military emergency and said everyone was now serving the state, he could send soldiers with guns, and force the slaves to try to do things in order not to be shot--100% full employment. But would that be meaningful employment?

Also, take the case of a primitive society, without any technology, let's assume. Everyone would have to go hunt or gather food, or no one would let them eat meat from a hunt kill.

Hardly desirable stuff--edge-of-starvation perhaps; but full employment, because everyone who could would be working at getting food.

So the term really refers to a system of justice where what's important is it's a marketplace which isn't inflated.
One wherein category-level definitions of prioritized inward qualities are exchanged and agreed on.

That way everyone who wants to work can find a job in a "seller's market", and would get some justice in terms of competing against defined standards and being judged at their true worth fairly quickly.

Answer 2

A comment on other answers:

Full employment is NOT 100% employment!!

When economists say full employment what they mean is the amount of employment so that the economy is working at its optimal output. Economies can produce above or below that optimal level, so employment can be higher than "full" because the economy actually works best when not everyone is working. That seems counter-intuitive, but if everyone is working the economy is actually working too hard and will eventually overheat (think late 2000 - early 2001 recession starting). If you are looking for a specific number, most economists peg it around 5-6% unemployment as the "full" rate (also called the NAIRU rate which stands for Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment -- full and NAIRU are not *exactly* the same but close enough for your question).

Just wanted to clarify.

Answer 3

Fulll employment is when the economy is at about a 6% unemployment rate. Naturally, it is unrealistic that 100% of the population would be employed at any given time. For example, some people will choose to be unemployed, stay at home moms, pregnancy, time off between job changes, sabbaticals, time off for school, etc..

A 6% unemployment is considered a natural rate of unemployment. Right now, unemployment is around 4%, depending on where you live, so, ..... basically, times are good, if you are looking for a job.

Answer 4

That would be 100 percent. The unemployment rate is simply that. The number of people of employable age, that are not currently working. They use a host of dirrent agency figures to arrive at this such as the U. S. Census, each states unemployment claims, and the military discharges which indicate if they have work yet or not. They calculate the number of people who could be working and then subtract all the people who are not (this includes disbaled). This gives them the number of people not working. They then divide the total number who could work by the number not working and you have the unemployment rate. Ten percent would be considered very bad in this country. It tends to stay around 4 or 5 percent. In some countries it is as high as 50 percent or more. We are very luck to have such a low rate in this country.

Answer 5

Just some clarification for some of the answers out there:
The unemployment rate is the number of people who are ACTIVELY LOOKING for a job but cannot find one divided by the ( the sum of these people and people who are working). This second quantity is what is referred to as the labor force=sum of those who are working and those who are actively looking for work. So, to sum up, Unemployment rate=(people ACTIVELY LOOKING for jobs)/(labor force)

So, stay-at-home mothers, people who are disabled and cannot work, and people who simply decide not to work, for some examples, do NOT count in unemployment.