Economics Write-Up

Katrina Angela D. Loyola
EC 112 JTA-A
The Unemployed
In the episode of How I Met Your Mother, Robin is currently unemployed and she is looking for a job because she might be deported back to Canada. She experiences two types of unemployment - frictional and structural. She is structurally unemployed due to her desperation to get a job. Because of getting turned down repeatedly, she went to the agency where they hire lottery girls, hoping that she'll get a shot. However, we see that she is not fit for the job because it is totally different from the job that she is used to and she does not have the skill or the "sass" to be a lottery girl.
Furthermore, she is frictionally unemployed because she just got laid off in her last job and is currently looking for her next one. She applies for different broadcast channels since she needs to work in the same industry, according to the letter about getting deported. She loses her confidence at first because her co-applicants intimidated her. Eventually, with the help of Barney, Robin gets hired in a broadcast channel and is no longer unemployed.
Seinfeld also illustrates unemployment in one of its episodes. It is focused on George Costanza and his new job. In his job interview, Mr. Tuttle's conversation with George was cut off by a phone call so he's not sure if he got the job or not. Because George needed a job, he decided to work in the office even with the unsure consent of Mr. Tuttle. He, then, is supposed to work on the Pensky file. Mr. Pensky visits him and actually tries to pirate him. If he accepted it, he would have been frictionally unemployed while he waits for the job from Mr. Pensky to get transferred to him. Perhaps, George feels that he is underemployed, which is why he would jump on any opportunity of a job. However, George ends up being unemployed due to his lack of responsibility in his new job and getting fooled by Mr. Pensky with the job offer.