These are excerts from an essay ive done recently hope it helps.
Unemployment
The demand for labour is a derived demand as it is determined from the demand of goods and services. During periods of low economic activity or downturns in the economy, the level of total demand in the economy is reduced, domestic consumption and investment spending decreases and therefore unemployment increases as workers are not needed and are therefore ‘fired’.
The current level of unemployment, as of March 2005, is 5.1% which is close to the government’s aim of full employment. Full employment indicates a level at which the quantity of labour demanded is equal to the quantity of labour supplied. This doesn’t mean zero unemployment as there is always going to be some unemployment due to frictional unemployment (workers changing jobs) or hidden unemployment (people doing unpaid work). The Howard government has been able to achieve this low level of unemployment through its concentration on policies to implement flexible workplace relations and expansion of enterprise bargaining between workers and employers.
Environment
Economic growth has the potential to create negative impacts onto the environment. When growth is pursued with little regard to its impact on the environment it results in
• pollution
• depletion of non-renewable energy sources and
• damage to the local environment through externalities.
Pollution can come in any form; noise, untreated rubbish, chemical substances, toxic fumes and almost any other by products of goods or services. They all affects the atmosphere, water supplies, the land we live on and all human activity seems to contribute to the problem. Pollution is often felt quite a distance away from the original source and this can affect all people in the community and in communities all over the world. One example is the amounts of CO2 being pumped into the air every year contributing to the global felt affects of global warming. Pollution can lead to costs being paid by the firm to help repair the environment affected. Firms can also be liable to pay for compensation to individuals who are found to have been injured or have become ill directly from externalities from a firm producing their product or service. These costs may include costs paid out to cancer patients who may have received radiation poisoning.
As firms produce goods they use up resources, whether they be steel, electricity, coal, wool or wheat. Some of these resources are not able to be reproduces very quickly, like coal and other non-renewable energy sources like oil and natural gas, or unable to be produced again indefinitely like steels and ores. This increases the rarity and value of these resources compare to other resources that can be reproduces quickly like wheat or wool. One major resource that Australians have been noticing recently is water. Due to the massive drought experienced by millions of people all over Australia, people are beginning to realise that we won't always have water on call if this continues.
Firms are able to lower production costs as they don’t have to take into consideration the effects their business has on the surrounding community. These costs or benefits that the community is left with are called externalities and may include damaged creeks or roads or something good like produce more business in the surrounding area. Land degradation can lead to a loss of potential production as problems, like salinity and mudslides, can leave the area unable to continue producing the good or service. E.g. Farmers are unable to continue growing grain crops if their lands experience salinity from ground level water tables. Land degradation can also reduce environmental biodiversity of an area as bush land is cleared or farming purposes.
