Unemployment is a situation wherein individuals are employable and pursuing a job but are unable to attain it. More concretely put, unemployment is the state where working age people do not have a job and have actively looked for work in the past few weeks. Besides, they are currently available to take up a job role and require subsistence. It is often interchangeably used with joblessness.
When unemployment rates are high and steady, there are negative impacts on the long-run economic growth, posing serious social and economic issues. Lower purchasing power, dip in consumer spending, squeezed profits for businesses, budget cuts and workforce reductions are likely to be a common phenomenon.