ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on paid employment and on levels of employment and unemployment in the economy as a whole. It also focuses on understanding the phenomenon of unemployment. The chapter explores what macroeconomics can tell us about how these and other forces are affecting the nature of employment, the levels and impacts of unemployment, and the longer-term future of work and incomes. It delves into patterns of unemployment and the workings of the labor market. The chapter focuses on two other determinants of labor productivity: technology, which can expand the stocks of manufactured, human, and social capital, and natural resources. It looks at primary-sector activities that provide the raw materials on which everything else depends, noting that the importance of these activities is belied by the small percentage of GDP devoted to them. It also looks at secondary-sector activities that process physical materials, turning them into goods for sale.
