Solving the Unemployment Problem

In a large enough population, there is going to be a percentage of people who are different from the norm in that they are not interested in working, or they say they want to work but always have an excuse not to get a job or be able to keep it.

So before any serious talk of solving the unemployment problem I think we need to agree that solving the problem means that any person who WANTS a job can have one.

But we don't know everyone, we only really know numbers - how do we identify the people who don't want a job and exclude them from the unemployment measure? And how do we identify the people who claim to want a job but find every excuse not to actually work?

I think the key to identifying such people is to do this:

1. replace the unemployment check with an unemployment program that offers jobs to the unemployed. These jobs would be cleaning streets, picking up trash, and other such jobs that don't require any qualifications besides normal physical ability. For physically disabled people, the key physical ability might be answering phones, or something else that they can still do. For really disabled people who cannot do any such job, if they really have no skill or ability that can be used like reading and speaking, they will not be qualified for the program and we will simply have to count them in the unemployment measure, maybe in a special category of people who actually cannot work so that we know there's nothing that can be done to help them get a job.

2. the unemployment program must issue certificates of performance to all people who are in this program so that it can be determined whether they are meeting the job requirements. This program would be no free lunch - if they don't do the work they will get fired from the job and the unemployment program will record a certificate that they failed to perform - and the circumstances involved.  Such people who get fired from the job program would be eligible to re-apply and try again with the same job a limited number of times, and to re-apply and try again with a different job a limited number of times.  Essentially, we would be giving people opportunities for employment and letting them build a record for themselves of not actually being able to keep a job for whatever reason or of maintaining a job.

3. People who get repeatedly fired or who quit from their freebie jobs and build a record for themselves of unemployability would not be counted in the unemployment measure. If they cannot keep a job that was offered to them with barely any questions asked and with multiple opportunities for re-hire if they mess up or quit, then it's very unlikely that they could obtain and keep a job in the market and no other job creation initiative would be able to solve their problem. They might be candidates or psychological or emotional help of some sort, though, and this should be offered to them  (by a charity).

So then we can talk about an unemployment measure that we are really confident speaks of people who want to work and are able to work but cannot find a job. And incidentally, that number will be very low because they will be employed in the unemployment job program until they do find a job.

The jobs offered under the unemployment program must not be full time jobs - I think no more than 6 hours a day - because anyone who is in that program must have enough time during regular business hours to search for and go to interview with a regular job, yet they do need to work enough hours to be able to sustain themselves with the money earned.

And by the way, this program does not have to be run by the government.  It can be run by a non-profit charity that is interested in helping people find work!  Such a charity could then obtain a contract with the government to provide certain services at a low cost - such as cleaning, picking up trash, answering phones, etc.  The government would get a good price since the charity is not out to make a profit.  And this would provide the charity income to pay the people's hourly wages for the work done.  Of course the charity could contract employment with any for-profit business too that finds their services valuable.