http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-longterm-jobless-20140910-story.html#page=1
Is unemployment simply because there aren’t enough jobs, or that firms/companies aren’t willing to hire long term unemployed workers? ‘From 2008 to 2012 only 1 in 10 long-term unemployed person in a given month had returned to steady, full-time work a year later’. (1) Ethically, by helping to create jobs, businessmen fulfill a ‘corporate social responsibility’, the idea that business should not only be ‘concerned merely with profits but also with social conscience such as providing employment’. (2)
Milton Freedman argues that there is only one corporate responsibility, as long as profits are being made without being deceitful. By taking a ‘political mechanism’ (3) approach in making ‘market mechanism’ decisions, for a single firm this would create inefficiencies leading to lower output and therefore generate less revenue, due to more unskilled workers. However ethically by leaving behind the long term unemployed/unskilled workers, a never-ending cycle is created in the domestic economy, low consumption of domestic goods/services and investments.
Any economy would want to produce at a full employment level. For society it would be beneficial to hire as many unemployed workers, as less unemployment benefits would be given out, giving the government extra government funding which could be used for improving the economy, such as human capitals. In the long term this would create more skilled/healthy workers which would benefit society largely.
Freedman’s argument suggests that as long as profit is being made without fraud and deceit, nothing else matters. However, in the long run alleviating poverty and unemployment will no doubt benefit the economy and society as a whole. Through the article we learn that the label of a ‘long term unemployed worker’ has detrimental effects in his/her ability to obtain work that they qualify for.
(1) Retrieved from ‘Long-term unemployed still at record levels’. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-longterm-jobless-20140910-story.html#page=1
(2), (3) Milton Friedman.’ The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits’. Retrieved from The New York Times Magazine