1. Fluctuations in economic activity may occur during the day (e.g. at markets), over the week or month (e.g. in recreational services) or seasonally (as in tourism). As activity ebbs, casual labour is laid off and many self-employed people are left without work.
2. Workers may be so numerous that at all times a substantial proportion are. less than fully employed (e.g. street vendors).
3. Hidden unemployment may occur where solidarity groups continue to employ all their members rather than discharging them when there is insufficient work to keep them fully occupied. Such generated employment is typical of family enterprise but social ties (eg. based on common origin or shared religion) can also promote a commitment to maintain every member of a community.
Misemployment refers to activity that contributes little to social welfare and includes begging as well as the hangers-on of the powerful and affluent, a role that is institutionalised in the inflated bureaucratic structures of many contemporary Third World societies.