Unemployment

Playing my first game as the US so it’s very likely I’ve missed something here but anyway,

how do I get rid of unemployment. I need my high GDP to fix the huge loan and get the country moving forward, but it causes a substantial increase in unemployment and there are very few ways to reduce it. It seems very counter intuitive having to cripple your own GDP to lower the unemployment. And the options you have for giving them work are very limited.

Armed forces, road work, Police, space and science.

Armed forces are decreased to save money so I don’t wanna increase that again, and police, space and science policies are already maxed out to attempt to decrease unemployment. I don’t want to increase the roads it’ll only cause me more problems.

I’m missing some more working fields that I can support via subsidies and grants to create jobs, could be stuff like:
Merchant fleet, Fossile fuel (oil drilling), construction (buildings), all kinds of industry(IT/Software, weapons, aerospace, Automotive, Electronics) and Tourism (stuff like development of beaches, museums, landmarks, travel advertisement etc.)

All of them have various associated effects that would play well with the rest of the game.

Remember that the list of affects for UNEMPLOYMENT only refer to the BLUE STATISTICS, EXISITNG RED SITUATIONS, EXISTING EVENTS, EXISTING DILLEMMAS and any EXISTING POLICIES, it does not list any UNIMPLEMENTED POLICIES. You might want to take a look at the POLICY list as there MAY be others you can use that will have an effect.

Off the top of my head I would look in the ECONOMY TAB and check things like SMALL BUSINESS LOANS (possibly only GDP, am unsure), SUBSIDIES for BUSINESS of various kinds etc. Cannot guarantee they will affect UNEMPLOYEMNT but they might, implement them and have a look

Also make sure you have NO SITUATIONS that are playing into UNEMPLOYMENT (Uncompetitive Economy might affect UNEMPLOYEMNT cannot remember, and I am sure there will be others). If you find one, try resolving it first as that will make all your other efforts to resolve unemployment much more effective. Situations seems designed to put the “brakes” on various sectors of government until such times as they are resolved.

Pushing money towards the POLICE is never a bad things, it makes a small improvement to UNEMPLOYMENT and pretty much makes everyone happy for a moderate cost. It could help resolve other SITUATIONS ie ORGANIZED CRIME, ARMED GANGS, VIGLANTES etc which will be negatively impacting your ECONOMY in one way or the other, and therefor reducing your ability to get rid of the DEFICT. Also remember ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATIONS ie ASTHMA EPIDEMIC, POULLTION etc also tend to reduce things like HEALTH, PRODUCTIVITY, etc and thus also depress the ECONOMY indirectly.

Also if you are tackling DEBT, TAXS also work to reduce it without necessarily raising unemployment. The PETROL TAX is a VERY POWERFULL POLICY (too powerful IMO) as the large NEGATIVE happiness modifiers DO NOT kick in until a fair way along the % bar, allowing you to raise BILLIONs in TAXs with little issues other then the PC cost. There a few policies like this one, that have almost universal benefit for a large PC cost, that are worth investing in.

Finally remember to watch the GLOBAL ECONOMY graph as it cycles from BUST to BOOM (or visa versa), if it is on the way down then expect a steady and significant drop in GDP for a year or two. Either kick the economy into growth to keep up, raise taxs or abolish services/grants/susidies because if you do not, you will NOT survive to the next election.

Hope this helps. (Sorry if I went into too much detail or rehashed stuff you already know).

The GDP-unemployment linkage is a little confusing at first glance, have a look at this topic: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=8456

Essentially, any level of GDP will produce unemployment. However, the higher your GDP, the weaker the positive effect on unemployment. So as you’d expect, the stronger your GDP, the lower unemployment goes.

Many of the bits and pieces you request are already in the game, although they don’t all necessarily hit unemployment. Fossil fuel subsidies are under the ‘Economy’ header but are politically difficult & expensive. Also under Economy, there are Technology Grants that you can give to directly fund investment in high-tech industry. Under Public Services, you can allocate Arts Subsidies, which do indeed boost tourism.

My favourite secret weapon is Childcare provision + Rural Development Grants. Both have notable impacts on unemployment; childcare provision significantly boosts productivity, and the RDG boosts GDP directly. Give them a whirl!