The average person will spend about a third of their life at work—that’s 90,000 hours working at their job, according to Gettysburg College. As a result, unemployment is a fierce enemy to many adults around the world.

Unemployment occurs when a person who is actively searching for a job is unable to secure one. For an individual, prolonged unemployment can mean big personal trouble, especially if they rely on their income to cover essential expenses such as housing, food, healthcare, and debt payments. Those who are unemployed often receive unemployment insurance, which is a US government-run program that provides temporary financial assistance through periodic cash benefits.

There are several types of unemployment. Frictional unemployment refers to individuals who are temporarily jobless when transitioning between jobs or are newly entering the workforce. Structural unemployment occurs when a workers’ skills no longer match the jobs needed in the economy, often due to technological advancements or economic shifts in society. Cyclical unemployment is linked to natural fluctuations in the cycle of the economy. During recessions, unemployment levels tend to spike up due to cyclical unemployment.

The government uses the unemployment rate to measure the health of the economy. Generally, experts agree that an unemployment rate of 3-5% is acceptable, though there is no single consensus and the ideal rate varies across different countries. An unemployment rate that is too low indicates that wage rates are high due to a lack of labor, and these high wage rates could cause inflation. On the other hand, high unemployment rates signal an unhealthy economy as unemployed individuals tend to spend less, which can further slow economic growth.

In the last jobs report in January 2025, unemployment rates were historically strong: they were recorded to be near a 50-year-low at 4.0%. However, recent developments from the Trump administration, specifically regarding Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), indicate that the unemployment rate may change.

The topic of federal layoffs has hit the headlines recently. There are currently 3.02 million civilians working for the federal government, according to the latest report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This comes out to a substantial 2% of the entire 170.7 million total civilian workforce. In early 2025, Elon Musk and DOGE initiated a program that aims to fire a large number of civilian government employees, which has already resulted in over 16,000 government employees being cut, according to Statista. Stefanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research, projects that probationary (a word to describe those in the first year of their federal occupation) job cuts will eventually climb to 80,000. Additionally, 75,000 federal employees have accepted a “buyout offer” from the White House, which provided all federal employees the option to resign in exchange for seven months of continued wages and benefits.

Musk’s reasoning behind this massive government downsizing? He believes that cutting government spending on federal wages could save the country a trillion dollars and help reduce national debt. “It’s not an optional thing, it’s an essential thing,” Musk said. “If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt.”

The layoffs of federal employees highlight both structural and cyclical unemployment. For example, laid-off federal employees may struggle to transfer their specialized skills into the private sector (structural unemployment), while these layoffs also signal broader government spending cuts aimed at reducing overall economic activity (cyclical unemployment). The significant reduction in the number of government employees is expected to have widespread effects on various government operations. For instance, national parks across the country plan to shorten their visiting hours due to the lack of employees to maintain the park. According to an SFGATE news article written on February 14, over 1,000 national park workers in their probationary period of working have already been fired, along with more than 700 employees who have decided to step down from their jobs.

Notable government agencies that have been highly impacted by the federal layoffs include the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Department of Energy (DOE), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) all of which work directly for the well-being of citizens.

In terms of numbers, experts from Wolfe Research predict that federal layoffs will directly increase the unemployment rate by 0.05%. They have also projected that the Trump administration’s immigration policies will affect the unemployment rate by 0.2%. Still, the projected rises in unemployment rate will only affect a fraction of the American workforce.

“It’s not going to tip the economy into recession by itself,” said Roth. However, this situation highlights the importance of understanding unemployment and its widespread effects on both individuals and the overall economy.