零失业率并不是一件好事

陈小将

While on the surface it appears that a 0% unemployment rate would be terrific for the citizens of a country, having a small amount of unemployment is actually desirable.

从表面上看，零失业率对一个国家的公民来说应该是好到爆了，然而实际上保留一个小幅的失业率才是好事。

To understand why we need to look at the three types (or causes) of unemployment.

要弄明白为什么，我们首先得来看看失业的三种形式。（或者说三种成因）

Cyclical Unemployment is defined as occurring "when the unemployment rate moves in the opposite direction as the GDP growth rate. So when GDP growth is small (or negative) unemployment is high." When the economy goes into recession and workers are laid off, we have cyclical unemployment.

周期性失业的定义是：失业率与GDP的增速呈负相关的关系。也就是说，当GDP增长率很小（或者为负）的时候，失业率会很高。当一个经济体进入衰退期，工人开始失业的时候，我们就遭遇了周期性失业。

Cyclical unemployment occurs when an economy's output deviates from potential GDP- i.e. the long-term trend level of output in an economy. 

当一个经济体的产出偏离潜在GDP的时候，也就是偏离长期的产出趋势的时候，周期性失业就出现了。

When an economy's output is higher than the level of potential GDP, resources are utilized at levels higher than normal and cyclical unemployment is negative. 

而当经济体的产出比潜在GDP更高的时候，资源的利用率会比正常情况下更高，这时周期性失业率就会为负。

Conversely, when an economy's output is lower than the level of potential GDP, resources are utilized at levels lower than normal and cyclical unemployment is positive.

反过来，如果经济体的产出低于潜在GDP，资源的利用效率就会低于正常值，那周期性失业率就会为正。

Put simply, cyclical unemployment is unemployment associated with business cycles- i.e. recessions and booms.

简单地讲，周期性失业是和经济周期有关的失业，也就是衰退期和繁荣期。