The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that as of September 2011, 9.1% of Americans are unemployed, meaning 14 million potential workers cannot find a job. suitable employment (“National Monthly Employment Update” par. 1). Many jobs that were once available to millions of people have been made obsolete by the creation of new technologies. On the other hand, information and engineering technologies have created a large number of skilled and unskilled jobs in the business sector and in many research fields. The balance between creation and destruction applies to the effects of technology in today's society and has been studied since ancient civilizations. With the daily arrival of new technologies, the number of available jobs is constantly fluctuating in all fields. This system of creation and destruction of jobs resulting from new technologies is the most significant effect on employment. Technology, quite simply, is eliminating jobs in many career fields and creating engineering positions in only a few other fields. Defining unemployment and technology will provide a better understanding of the effects of technology on employment. Unemployment is difficult to explain, but the Department of Labor says people are unemployed if they are out of work but looking for potential employment, even if the jobs they are looking for are not available while other job opportunities are available. employment can exist (Mabry and Sharplin 2). Therefore, anyone who has been laid off due to technology and is still looking for the same job they had before is considered unemployed. Mabry, professor of finance at Clemson University, and Sharplin, professor of management at Northeast Louisiana State University...... middle of paper ...... the distribution of technology-related jobs generally remains in balance. However, this response does not happen overnight and there is always a brief period of economic instability. Initially, jobs held by unskilled workers are lost or are taken by new skilled workers. Sometimes, certain technological advancements completely destroy the need for a job, causing extreme unemployment in that field of work. What follows is a period of stagnation in which employment does not grow, but rather balances out at alternating percentages depending on the economy. Subsequently, there is always an explosion of jobs as competition and the applicability of technology become more diverse. This in turn proves that even though the technology is economically unstable from the start, it is a great way to create jobs over a long period of time..