Seasonal Unemployment

Normally when we talk of employed people we mean those who have work throughout the year. But this may not possible for all. In agriculture, work is seasonal even though agricultural activities are performed throughout the year. During the peak agricultural seasons (when the crop is ready for harvesting) more people are required for work. Similarly in the sowing, weeding and transplantation period more labour is required. Employment therefore increases at this time. In fact we will find that there is hardly any unemployment in rural areas during these peak agricultural seasons. However, once these seasons are over the agricultural workers, especially those who do not own land or whose land is not sufficient to meet their basic requirement (these are landless labourers and marginal farmers respectively), remain unemployed. This type of unemployment is known as seasonal unemployment.

Voluntary Unemployment

People who are unwilling to work at prevailing wage rate and people who get a continuous flow of income from their property or any other sources and need not to work, such people are voluntarily unemployed.

Frictional Unemployment

Unemployment attributable to the time required to match production activities with qualified resources. Frictional unemployment essentially occurs because resources, especially labor, are in the process of moving from one production activity to another. Employers are seeking workers and workers are seeking employment, the two sides just haven't matched up. Hence unemployment of the frictional variety increases. This mismatch is largely the result of limited information, which is often compounded by geographic separation between producer and resource.

Causal Unemployment

Cyclical unemployment is based on a greater availability of workers than there are jobs for workers. It is usually directly tied to the state of the economy. Lower demand for products due to lack of consumer confidence , disinterest, or reduction in consumer spending results in the workforce cutting back on production. Since production is reduced, companies that retail such products may also cut back on workforce, creating yet more cyclical unemployment.

Disguised Unemployment

There are also instances where we find too many people working when so many are not required. In agriculture we may find that all members of the family work. It is possible that 3-4 people can do a given work in the farm, but we find that the whole family of say 10 people doing the job. This may be because the excess people are not able to find employment elsewhere, so rather than remain unemployed they prefer to do the work along with others. This is known as disguised unemployment. This occurs when more than the necessary numbers of people are employed for the specified work. Disguised unemployment is found in agriculture because of the lack of employment opportunities elsewhere. Similarly disguised unemployment can be found in industry and offices as well.