There is a connection between economic growth and unemployment. There is a connection between growth and inflation. Therefore, commonsense (and financial theory) goes, there must be a connection between inflation and unemployment. A special measure of this connection is the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). Supposedly, this is the rate of unemployment which still does not influence inflation. If unemployment goes below NAIRU, inflationary pressures begin to exert themselves. This is closely linked to the other concepts, those of “structural”, “frictional” and “conjectural or cyclical” unemployment types.
Some unemployment, the theory, goes is frictional. It is the inevitable result of a few processes:
The frictional type of unemployment is a sign of economic health. It indicates a dynamic economy in fast development. It is a sign of labor mobility, of labor flexibility (part time solutions and flexitime) and of labor adaptability.
This cannot be said about the second, more insidious, type, the structural unemployment. It is this kind of unemployment which really bothers governments and worries social planners. It has long term psychological and social effects and limits both economic growth and social cohesion. It is also the most difficult to battle.
Usually, it is the result of ingrained, long term and structural processes and changes in the economy and cannot be fought with artificial one-time measure (employment initiated by the state or fiscal stimulus intended to encourage employment). Among the factors which create it:
The “Natural Rate of Employment” takes into account that frictional and structural employment must exist. What is left is really the full employment rate. This is highly misleading. First, economists are forced to rely on government data which, normally, tend to underestimate and understate the problem. For example: the statistics ignore “discouraged workers” (those who despaired and stopped looking for work). A second, more philosophical issue, is that, as opposed to frictional unemployment, which is a welcome sign, structural unemployment is not and must be fiercely fought by the state. But Economy give Politics a legitimacy to ignore structural unemployment as a part of life.
But the third problem is the most pressing: what is the “natural” rate of unemployment and how should it be determined? This is where NAIRU came in: the natural rate of unemployment could be construed as that rate of unemployment which prevented bad economic effects, such as inflation.
In the USA this was estimated to be 5-6%. But this estimate was based on a long history of labor and inflation statistics. History proved the wrong guide in this case: the world has changed. Globalization, technological innovation, growing free international trade, growth in productivity, electronic money, the massive move to the “Third Wave” (Information and knowledge) industries – all this meant that inflationary pressures could be exported or absorbed and the employment could go much higher without fostering them.
This became part of a new paradigm in economy which proclaimed the death of the business cycle and of the inflationary boom-bust phases. Though exaggerated and probably untrue, the “New Paradigm” did predict that productivity will grow, inflation will remain subdued, unemployment will decrease drastically and the prices of financial assets will explode – all simultaneously (which was considered hitherto impossible). The unemployment rate in the USA has stayed well below 5% and there are still no sign of inflation. This is remarkable (though probably short lived. Inflation will pick up there and the world over starting in 1998).
Is this a structural or frictional or cyclical unemployment? It is tempting to say that it is structural. It seems to be the result of trying to adapt to a brave new world: new technologies, new determinants of survival, new market mechanisms, the need for a set of completely new skills and new consumer preferences. But a closer analysis will yield a different picture: most of the unemployment (and in countries in transition in general) is cyclical and frictional. It is the result of massive layoffs which, in themselves, are the results of efficiency and productivity drives.
It is not that the workforce is ill adapted to cope with the new, post-transition situation. The composition of skills is well balanced, the education, in some respects, better than in the West, labor mobility is enforced by the cruelty of the new labor markets, the pay is low and is likely to remain so (wage pressures don’t go well with high unemployment). The workforce has adapted wondrously.
The failures belong to the management levels and, above all, to the political echelons. Unwilling to adapt, eager to make a quick (personal) buck, entrenched in cozy offices and old ways of thinking, more interested in their perks that in anything else, not educated in the new ways of the markets – they led themselves and their workers (=their voters) to the unemployment swamp. This unfortunate condition was avoidable.
Even much higher employment will not create wage pressures. Only the most skilled workers will possess the ability to dictate their own wages and, even then, we are talking about ridiculous wages in Western terms. There is so much competition for every vacancy (“an employers’ market”) that the likelihood of demanding (and getting) higher wages (and, thus, generating inflationary pressures is all but non-existent). So NAIRU is an abstract notion with no applicability. Every additional percent of permanent employment in the West entails 2-3 as much in economic (GDP) growth. But this rate of unemployment can be achieved only with the right policy decisions on the state level – and the right management cadre to take advantage of these decisions and of the thrilling new vistas of the global market scene.