ABSTRACT
Unemployment arises due to external or internal shocks to a normal situation which would otherwise have been characterised by full employment. Increasing the speed of adjustment of the economy to such shocks should then improve Irish unemployment. The inevitable result of rising productivity, stagnant working class standards of living, and a constant or rising length of working time is unemployment. Since inflation can be set off by the cost push of rising wages and better working conditions, fall employment has effectively been defined as a positive level of unemployment high enough to discourage demands for increased wages and improved conditions. Placing inflation at the forefront of policy concerns, monetarists, and with them most modern economists, have defined the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment as the level of full employment. The inevitable result of rising productivity, stagnant working class standards of living, and a constant or rising length of working time is unemployment.
