Economist Paul Krugman writes in his op-ed that "structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions." In response to a growing number of pundits and policymakers who claim that the current unemployment is structural—that is, the result of a deeply rooted discrepancy between the sort of labor industries demand and the sort of labor workers are trained to do—Krugman offers a list of evidence to the contrary. Unemployment is spread fairly evenly across industries and across the country rather than leaving a certain area or region untouched, as structural unemployment would. Krugman goes on to say that claims of structural unemployment are just excuses for inaction. "We aren't suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we're suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment isn't a real problem, it's an excuse—a reason not to act on America's problems at a time when action is desperately needed."
Read it at New York Times
