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Economic Definition of structural unemployment. Defined.

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Term structural unemployment Definition: Unemployment caused by a mismatch between workers' skills and skills needed for available jobs. Structural unemployment essentially occurs because resources, especially labor, are configured (trained) for a given technology but the economy demands goods and services using another technology. Employers seek workers how have one type of skill and workers who seek employment have a different type of skill. This mismatch in skills, which is largely the result of technological progress, creates unemployment of the structural variety. Structural unemployment is one of four unemployment sources. The other three are cyclical unemployment, seasonal unemployment, and frictional unemployment.

 

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