Unemployment in the UK: Understanding the Economic Impacts

The UK Labour Market: Employment Measures and Rates

Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from. This differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job. The employment rate
is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment…. Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks and are available to start work within the next two weeks. The unemployment rate is not the proportion of the total population who are unemployed. It is the proportion of the economically active population (those in work plus those seeking
and available to work) who are unemployed.”

Office of National Statistics, Labour market overview, UK: July 2021 This assessment is focused on the economic aspects of the labour market, specifically employment and unemployment in the United Kingdom in 2020-2021
and their impacts on the British economy. The required economics concepts are covered in Part 6 and Part 7 of the Essentials of Economics textbook (Krugman & Wells, 2020) in chapters 12-16 (required reading). This corresponds to the subjects of module lectures 12-16.

Students are invited to present on the nature of unemployment in the UK. To do this, students need to use economic theories and concepts learned in MOD3327 lectures and in the required textbook readings in Essentials of Economics (Krugman and Wells, 2020). Students must identify, analyse and present their
findings on ONE of the following topics:

a. Who make up the long term unemployed in the UK and why?
b. What happened to the unemployment rate in the UK during the pandemic and why?
c. What did the UK government do to deal with the potential high levels of unemployment that could have arisen during the pandemic?
d. How can the UK government reduce unemployment in the short term in the UK?
e. How can the UK government reduce unemployment in the UK in the medium and long term?

2. Students will independently research and design a 3-slide PowerPoint presentation to present their topic, which they will present live at their scheduled assessment day and time. The PowerPoint presentation must be submitted on the VLE before students’ scheduled assessment time.

a) One cover slide with a presentation topic title, student name and ID, module number, lecturer name, presentation day and time. 
b) One topic slide about their chosen UK labour market presentation topic from the above list of five topic choices, including footnote citations of academic, government, or news sources used for any facts provided. The
topic slide should make at least five clear points with one different reference source for each of the five point. Maximum 200 words per slide. Be mindful of text size, format, and choice of colours for best
legibility. This slide is NOT meant to be read out loud by the student. The student is expected to use it as a guide for their spoken presentation, using their knowledge and memory to present with the slide as a reminder.
c) One references slide with Harvard style references for all footnote citations from the topic slide. Students are expected to use at least five sources, including the module textbook by Krugman & Wells (2020)
3. Students must present their slides for five minutes maximum during their scheduled 30 minute time slot during the live practical assessments, scheduled for Week 12 during normal class hours. Exact schedule time and day of presentations for each student will be confirmed to students by email during the trimester. Attendance on time for your scheduled assessment is mandatory.

Understanding Unemployment: Definition and Measurement

Late arrivals to your presentation may lead to failure (not possible to enter the assessment during another student’s presentation) and require you to resit the assessment and the module in future trimester.
Assignment Instructions:

1. Students must ensure they have attended lectures 12-16, reviewed lecture slides and/or videos 12-16, and read Krugman & Wells chapters 12-16 to successfully pass this assessment.

2. Students need to do independent research on their chosen topic. 2020-2021 Labour market research must be done on UK government websites such as the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the UK Department of Workforce and Pensions (DWP), and other government sources of information (websites ending in “gov.uk”).

Students must use academic reference sources available on the ARUL digital library or other academic reference sources such as Google Scholar. Students may use major UK news sources in print or online such as BBC News, The Guardian, The Independent, etc.

3. Use of low quality/non-academic sources, irrelevant, false, off-topic, out of date sources (prior to 2020-2021), or non-UK sources will result in loss of marks up to 20% and possible reporting to the Academic Offense team if
plagiarism, collusion, or contract cheating is suspected, which can lead to failing the assessment and failing the module. 

4. Students must submit their slides to the VLE submission link in the Assessments folder in advance of their presentation time to avoid technical delays during presentations and loss of 20% presentation references and
formatting marks. Presentation document must be correctly titled following these instructions and in this order to identify students and their presentations: lecturer initials, cohort group number, presentation day and
time, first and surname, (ex: “MC Group 01 10 Dec 230PM RashidaGrodzski”). Failure to correctly identify your presentation according to these specific guidelines could lead to it being considered as not submitted. It is students’ responsibility to label their presentations correctly.

5. Students MUST NOT read from a script when presenting. Reading from a script will incur a 10% penalty to overall marks (e.g. a mark of 60 would be reduced to 50), although a pass mark will not be reduced to a fail.

6. Students may not work together to write their presentations in collaboration; this is the definition of academic “collusion”, which is academic misconduct that can lead to failing an assessment and failing the module. All student presentations will be recorded and compared for content similarities in wording (written and spoken). Suspected cases collusion, contract cheating, and plagiarism will be reported to the Academic Offense team for
investigation.