GDP and Unemployment for Great Term Paper

By 1990, Thatcher was presiding over a dichotomy, decaying industrial cities in the north and a well developed southern economy. As a result, she was replace by John Major (Columbia Encyclopaedia, 2004).

By 2000, GDP was growing at a faster rate than unemployment, possibly due to the fact that Major had obtained an IRA cease-fire, so that Northern Ireland had at least some respite from draining the economy and culture. Indeed, direct rule by Great Britain was abolished in Northern Ireland in 1999, although home rule has resulted in substantial political manoeuvring (Columbia Encyclopaedia, 2004).

By 2005, unemployment was somewhat lower, but GDP had ceased to grow at the rate it enjoyed before 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks on New York City. While the United Kingdom was not directly affected by the attacks, as a partner with the United States in that nation's stand against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and later against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the United Kingdom not only suffered from the need to spend money on warfare, as well as donating troops and equipment; it was faced with some rancour among its EU allies for its stance.It is probably this, in addition to a global slowdown, caused the relatively minor movement in both measures, GDP and unemployment, retaining them at levels not far different from those of the more robust 1990s.

Unemployment, often regarded as a cyclical measure of economic health, is cyclical only insofar as it reflects other major economic and also political cycles. One UK financial Web site notes that unemployment:

Will vary with the trade cycle. When the economy is booming, there will be lots of demand and so firms will be employing large numbers of workers. Demand-deficient unemployment will at this stage of the cycle be fairly low. If the economy slows down, then demand will begin to fall. When this happens firms will begin to lay workers off as they do not need to produce so much. Demand-deficient unemployment rises. The behaviour of demand-deficient unemployment will exactly mirror the trade cycle (Bized Web site, 2005).

Works Cited

Demand-deficient or Cyclical unemployment. 1999-2005. Bized web site. 7 September 2005, http://www.bized.ac.uk/virtual/economy/policy/outcomes/iunempth2.htm

Great Britain. Columbia Encyclopaedia, 6th ed., 2004. 7 September 2005, http://www.questia.com.….....