Unemployment takes a person from the world of work and indicates that they are unnecessary, have no value, their skills redundant. It takes away the camaraderie of work, the jokes, the rituals and the money in the pocket to buy a round of drinks, place a bet, treat the family, or afford a holiday.

Unemployment may be the anguish facing the school leaver or even university graduate with high hopes after years of preparation. It may be the middle aged man whose factory closes leaving no work within miles and the prospect of the rest of his life unemployed.

Paid unemployment benefit helps, there may be the opportunity for retraining and increasingly the safe job for life has disappeared as the pace of change increases and with it the need for worker flexibility.

The unemployed person is more depressed and gets more physical and mental illness. He will be drinking and smoking more heavily and is at an increased risk of premature death.

Underemployment may be seasonal depending on weather or opportunity-farm work, hotel work. There may be over manning, low productivity and boredom in the workforce e.g the British newspaper industry in the 1980’s.

With a shorter working week and longer holidays and even a shorter working lifetime there may be opportunity for more people to share work. It is difficult to justify one man doing 10 hours a week of overtime when a man with a similar skill cannot get any work at all.