Full employment, in
macroeconomics, is the level of employment rates where there is no cyclical or
deficient-demand unemployment. It is defined by the majority of
mainstream economists as being an acceptable level of unemployment somewhere above 0%. The discrepancy from 0
rises due to non-cyclical
types of unemployment, such as
frictional unemployment (there will always be people who have quit or have lost a seasonal job and are in the process of getting a new job) and
structural unemployment (mismatch between worker skills and job requirements). Unemployment above 0% is seen as necessary to control
inflation in
capitalist economies, to keep inflation from
accelerating, i.e., from rising from year to year. This view is based on a theory centering on the concept of the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (
NAIRU); in the current era, the majority of mainstream economists mean NAIRU when speaking of "full" employment. The NAIRU has also been described by
Milton Friedman, among others, as the "natural" rate of unemployment. Having many names, it has also been called the structural unemployment rate.