History of Unemployment

From the beginning of our history, politicians have often called for full employment as a national goal, yet full employment has also been seen as a cause of inflation and so is undercut by decisions by the Federal Reserve in order to prevent inflation. Unemployment changes over time in terms of causes, makeup, degree of severity, and possible solutions, and over the last decade unemployment has both been reduced and has also changed its makeup in terms of the kinds of industries experiencing unemployment and the proposals for solving the problem. The highest job losses in the last decade have been in traditional bread-and-butter industries such as manufacturing, and this is seen as part of a shift in the economy to the new information age paradigm as workers are moved from manufacturing jobs to a service economy.