What is structural unemployment

Structural unemployment is a category of unemployment caused by mismatch between the skills possessed by the unemployed population and the jobs available in the market.

• Change in the structure of the industryg. if the industry changes from use of labour intensive to capital intensive technology. For example automation in printing industry worker on manual printing press become redundant.
• Change in demand which forces employers to lay off some workers.
• Exhaustion of some inputs for example exhaustion of a mineral such as copper in Kilembe mine
• Technological changes which make the economy to demand for capital intensive then labour intensive technology.
• Labour immobility where labour cannot move from a declining industry to growing industry due to lack of adequate skills.
• Political instability that lead to closure of industries
• Poor management that causes collapse of industries and production units
• Structural rigidities in economy such as breakdown of the main transport systems.
• Government restructuring policy of reducing on the number of civil servants as it was done in 1990 in Uganda.
• Seasonal unemployment especially in agriculture.
• Company reallocation. For example, if a region only has one airport and that airport moves to a new area, the employees may become structurally unemployed.