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The definition of "unemployment" is important here. it An unemployed person is defined by Eurostat, according to the guidelines of the International Labour Or

The definition of "unemployment" is important here. it An unemployed person is defined by Eurostat, according to the guidelines of the International Labour Organization, as: > someone aged 15 to 74 (in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway: 16 to 74 years); > without work during the reference week; > available to start work within the next two weeks (or has already found a job to start within the next three months); > actively having sought employment at some time during the last four weeks. > The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labour force. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Unemployment http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/... This means that any person which is currently not earning their keep, but not actively searching a job (because they are on the dole) will not be unemployed in these statistics. It also means that any person which is not earning their keep, but unable to take a job in the next two weeks because the are in a government job market program, will not be listed as unemployed in these statistics. Lies, damn lies and statistics.

crispyporkbites 8y ago
No - to be on the dole you need to be actively searching for a job in most jurisdictions in Europe. E.g. in the UK you need to go down to the job center every week and prove you're searching for a job in order to claim unemployment benefit. It's literally called jobseeker's allowance to reflect that. Also what is a "government job market program"? Are you referring to a government employing people en masse to inflate the employment rate? You generally need taxes to do that so it's probably a legitimate approach.
- DanBC 8y ago
  JSA is being replaced by universal credit. People on UC need to spend 35 hours per week on their job search, and they need to be able to demonstrate this. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-and-your-claimant-commitment-quick-guide/universal-credit-and-your-claimant-commitment https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-... > You should think of jobseeking as a full-time job. You will be expected to look or prepare for work for 35 hours a week, depending on your circumstances. This requirement is robustly enforced. I mention this because there are some people in the UK who think that unemployed people in the UK can get away with not doing anything.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Dishonest unemployed people can get away with doing virtually nothing (or doing undisclosed work), most of the time, no?
    - gpvos 8y ago
      Citation needed. A small minority maybe. Dishonesty can be hard work.
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        I'm not saying it's widespread, nor necessarily that easy (I don't know) but every few weeks I'm looking at our local news online and there's a story of someone claiming jobseekers, housing benefit, disability or attendance allowances, and they're working (and paying taxes it seems, so it should have been easy to catch them). 5s Google - http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern-ireland-news/243195/other-news-in-brief http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern-ireland-news/243195/other-news..., some guy claiming whilst working. Assuming not all cases are found - and stories I've seen in the past have been of people caught after well over a year of false claims - then it seems perfectly doable for those who are dishonest (through necessity or otherwise).
        DanBC 8y ago
        The rate of fraud on benefits is really low. Yes, it does happen, and a few people do get away with it for a long time. But it's wrong to suggest that it's widespread, and doing so causes harm because it encourages the Hostile Environment stuff. Looking at your link, these people were caught reasonably quickly. One of the people in your link managed to claim just £231. At his age he'd be getting £73 per week, so he fraudulently claimed less than a month. It's harder to work out the other person, because they were also claiming housing benefit. He lived at Ballysillan Crescent, Belfast, which is a B14 post code. Local housing allowance rates are https://www.nihe.gov.uk/index/benefits/lha/current_lha_rates.htm https://www.nihe.gov.uk/index/benefits/lha/current_lha_rates... Here's that street on Google maps: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.6291805,-5.9663763,3a,75y,30.48h,92.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sj1TywIFqVppVVd7--wbgOQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.6291805,-5.9663763,3a,75y,... Let's take the one bedroom rate of £86.16 per week, plus £73.10 per week = £159.26 per week. (this assumes he claims as a single person, and it lowers the weekly amount. I do this because I want to maximise the time he claimed for as a worst case). £4,114 / £159 = = 25 weeks. So, about 6 months. If he was claiming the 2 bedroom rate, or was claiming JSA as a couple he would have got more moeny per week, and so was caught much quicker. You'll find similar in the other cases. People try it and they usually get caught within a year.
- nspattak 8y ago
  Reporting from Greece: 1) most unemployed people are not entitled to any kind of allowance. There are big groups of unemployed people (women, people aged 50+, specialized workers eg constructor workers ) who have given up the hope to find a job except from some occasional paydays (most likely black labor) which they may find from word of mouth. They do not bother going to the "job center/unemployment office". 2) The unemployment office arranges for "training" where groups of unemployed people can attend. The attendants are paid like a 100-300e per month for 1-6 months. During these (otherwise useless) trainings these people are no longer considered unemployed and one can read these disgusting news titles "unemployment down to 30% from 31.5%". I myself was never counted as an unemployed in Greece until I found my first position (in the UK as an engineer mind you... )
toomanybeersies 8y ago
That's the standard definition for unemployment. An unemployed person is generally considered to be someone who would want to be employed, but is not. It is meant to be a measurement of the number of people who want jobs, but are unable to get them. There are other measurements for labour force participation, which are usually fairly easy to find, and are a proportion of people who are legally able to work, against the number of actual workers.
- roenxi 8y ago
  It is as good a time as any to wish a pox on all jargon and reflect that a person with no employment is unlikely to be unemployed. If anyone else is interested, a very light search into the history of when they picked that measure as the standard suggests it has been with us since ~1930. Apparently the nature of complaints hasn't changed much over the years. [1] davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/origins-of-unemployment.pdf
  - zimzam 8y ago
    The jargon exists because the category is useful in answering the question "how is the economy doing". If we included people who are retired then we would see unemployment go up and down in correlation with generation sizes: when the baby boomers retire the number of "unemployed" people would go up dramatically. But that confuses the picture of whether businesses are hiring.
    - esbranson 8y ago
      Hence why the question should be and is limited to ages 25-54 year olds. A "retired" 25 year old should be included in the definition of unemployment. However, the 25-54 unemployment rate (the opposite of the "employment rate") is not calculated by state or locality in the US.
  - throwawayjava 8y ago
    I don't think you do the problem justice. Here are some people who fit the "no employment" metric but who we shouldn't count as "unemployed" if our goal is "anyone who wants a job, or needs a job to live without assistance, has one": * A by-choice stay-at-home parent. There are like 10 million stay-at-home parents in the US (c.f., our entire labor force is ~125 million!) * A contract worker/consultant, as well as employees in seasonal fields such as construction, many of whom make very decent 12-month wages but might be "unemployed" if you ask at the wrong moment. * Anyone with a severe disability (mental or physical) which makes work difficult or impossible. * Someone younger than retirement age (40s-50s) who has retired early by choice (e.g., no kids, dual high incomes for 20+ years, non-extravagant lifestyle; particularly relevant for this forum...) If you counted all of these, I have no doubt our unemployment rate would at least double, if not triple. But that would be a ridiculously stupid number to even think about -- none of the above people want a job (or want a 12 month job); why should we try to organize society around forcing them to work when they don't need to and don't want to?! I'm not claiming the current definition of "unemployed" is perfect, BTW. But IMO it's WAY better than yours...
tom_mellior 8y ago
> currently not earning their keep, but not actively searching a job (because they are on the dole) will not be unemployed Why? If you are on the dole but without any disability or other commitment, you are considered "available to start work", no? Being available is one of the typical conditions for getting unemployment benefits. > unable to take a job in the next two weeks because the are in a government job market program, will not be listed as unemployed That's true, and it's one of the reasons why it's not super meaningful to try to compare and interpret these figures without any additional information.
- hmschreck 8y ago
  This is how the BLS U3 statistic is arrived at. The U3 is the federal-level unemployment figure that is most commonly pointed to. The U3 specifically does not include discouraged workers, those who are underemployed, or those who simply aren't looking. As long as we are comparing apples to apples (i.e., these figures are all indicative of the same basic data with the same restrictions), there's no issue comparing them.
  - tom_mellior 8y ago
    Some countries' job centers put jobless people into bullshit training courses that do nothing for them, but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while. Other countries do not do this. The "same restrictions" apply, but countries in the first category will have fewer "unemployed" people even if they have the same number of discouraged/underemployed/jobless/whatever people. Is that apples to apples?
    - macintux 8y ago
      > but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while Are there enough people to whom that distinction applies to be more than statistical noise relative to the other regional variations that would have an impact? Seems like a minor nit to pick in the grand scheme of things.
gpvos 8y ago
I thought that in most countries, if you are on the dole, you must search for work if you are capable, or you get a severe reduction in your financial support.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  There are some people that have just given up on finding a job; they're able and willing to work, but because of reasons they can't find a job. Those might be on the dole, but they might also be able to survive off of a single income. These stats should have a category "wants to work but can't find any, and is not entitled to benefits". Or "Able to work but doesn't need to because rich".
  - ajuc 8y ago
    In my country if you are on a dole and the bureau of employment finds a job for you (usually not very nice job) - you have to take it or have a good reason why you can't (health for example). If you don't - you're left on your own. Also, unemployment benefits end after 6 months no matter what.
    - distances 8y ago
      > Also, unemployment benefits end after 6 months no matter what. What happens after six months if you don't have family willing to support you? You're on the streets?
      - ajuc 8y ago
        There are other social benefits unrelated to employement (for example for kids from poor families, etc), but in principle - yes. Now it's not so bad, you can find a job if you really want (it might be bad, but it's there). In 90s we had 20% unemployment and almost no social benefits. It was rough.
      - anoncoward111 8y ago
        Quite literally, yes.
rsynnott 8y ago
> but not actively searching a job (because they are on the dole) Depends on the country, but in most to draw the dole you have to be "actively searching for a job" (at least in the sense that would count for these stats). What this figure _would_ exclude would be retired people and those on permanent disability.

crispyporkbites 8y ago

No - to be on the dole you need to be actively searching for a job in most jurisdictions in Europe. E.g. in the UK you need to go down to the job center every week and prove you're searching for a job in order to claim unemployment benefit. It's literally called jobseeker's allowance to reflect that. Also what is a "government job market program"? Are you referring to a government employing people en masse to inflate the employment rate? You generally need taxes to do that so it's probably a legitimate approach.

DanBC 8y ago
JSA is being replaced by universal credit. People on UC need to spend 35 hours per week on their job search, and they need to be able to demonstrate this. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-and-your-claimant-commitment-quick-guide/universal-credit-and-your-claimant-commitment https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-... > You should think of jobseeking as a full-time job. You will be expected to look or prepare for work for 35 hours a week, depending on your circumstances. This requirement is robustly enforced. I mention this because there are some people in the UK who think that unemployed people in the UK can get away with not doing anything.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Dishonest unemployed people can get away with doing virtually nothing (or doing undisclosed work), most of the time, no?
  - gpvos 8y ago
    Citation needed. A small minority maybe. Dishonesty can be hard work.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      I'm not saying it's widespread, nor necessarily that easy (I don't know) but every few weeks I'm looking at our local news online and there's a story of someone claiming jobseekers, housing benefit, disability or attendance allowances, and they're working (and paying taxes it seems, so it should have been easy to catch them). 5s Google - http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern-ireland-news/243195/other-news-in-brief http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern-ireland-news/243195/other-news..., some guy claiming whilst working. Assuming not all cases are found - and stories I've seen in the past have been of people caught after well over a year of false claims - then it seems perfectly doable for those who are dishonest (through necessity or otherwise).
      - DanBC 8y ago
        The rate of fraud on benefits is really low. Yes, it does happen, and a few people do get away with it for a long time. But it's wrong to suggest that it's widespread, and doing so causes harm because it encourages the Hostile Environment stuff. Looking at your link, these people were caught reasonably quickly. One of the people in your link managed to claim just £231. At his age he'd be getting £73 per week, so he fraudulently claimed less than a month. It's harder to work out the other person, because they were also claiming housing benefit. He lived at Ballysillan Crescent, Belfast, which is a B14 post code. Local housing allowance rates are https://www.nihe.gov.uk/index/benefits/lha/current_lha_rates.htm https://www.nihe.gov.uk/index/benefits/lha/current_lha_rates... Here's that street on Google maps: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.6291805,-5.9663763,3a,75y,30.48h,92.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sj1TywIFqVppVVd7--wbgOQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.6291805,-5.9663763,3a,75y,... Let's take the one bedroom rate of £86.16 per week, plus £73.10 per week = £159.26 per week. (this assumes he claims as a single person, and it lowers the weekly amount. I do this because I want to maximise the time he claimed for as a worst case). £4,114 / £159 = = 25 weeks. So, about 6 months. If he was claiming the 2 bedroom rate, or was claiming JSA as a couple he would have got more moeny per week, and so was caught much quicker. You'll find similar in the other cases. People try it and they usually get caught within a year.
nspattak 8y ago
Reporting from Greece: 1) most unemployed people are not entitled to any kind of allowance. There are big groups of unemployed people (women, people aged 50+, specialized workers eg constructor workers ) who have given up the hope to find a job except from some occasional paydays (most likely black labor) which they may find from word of mouth. They do not bother going to the "job center/unemployment office". 2) The unemployment office arranges for "training" where groups of unemployed people can attend. The attendants are paid like a 100-300e per month for 1-6 months. During these (otherwise useless) trainings these people are no longer considered unemployed and one can read these disgusting news titles "unemployment down to 30% from 31.5%". I myself was never counted as an unemployed in Greece until I found my first position (in the UK as an engineer mind you... )

toomanybeersies 8y ago

That's the standard definition for unemployment. An unemployed person is generally considered to be someone who would want to be employed, but is not. It is meant to be a measurement of the number of people who want jobs, but are unable to get them. There are other measurements for labour force participation, which are usually fairly easy to find, and are a proportion of people who are legally able to work, against the number of actual workers.

roenxi 8y ago
It is as good a time as any to wish a pox on all jargon and reflect that a person with no employment is unlikely to be unemployed. If anyone else is interested, a very light search into the history of when they picked that measure as the standard suggests it has been with us since ~1930. Apparently the nature of complaints hasn't changed much over the years. [1] davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/origins-of-unemployment.pdf
- zimzam 8y ago
  The jargon exists because the category is useful in answering the question "how is the economy doing". If we included people who are retired then we would see unemployment go up and down in correlation with generation sizes: when the baby boomers retire the number of "unemployed" people would go up dramatically. But that confuses the picture of whether businesses are hiring.
  - esbranson 8y ago
    Hence why the question should be and is limited to ages 25-54 year olds. A "retired" 25 year old should be included in the definition of unemployment. However, the 25-54 unemployment rate (the opposite of the "employment rate") is not calculated by state or locality in the US.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  I don't think you do the problem justice. Here are some people who fit the "no employment" metric but who we shouldn't count as "unemployed" if our goal is "anyone who wants a job, or needs a job to live without assistance, has one": * A by-choice stay-at-home parent. There are like 10 million stay-at-home parents in the US (c.f., our entire labor force is ~125 million!) * A contract worker/consultant, as well as employees in seasonal fields such as construction, many of whom make very decent 12-month wages but might be "unemployed" if you ask at the wrong moment. * Anyone with a severe disability (mental or physical) which makes work difficult or impossible. * Someone younger than retirement age (40s-50s) who has retired early by choice (e.g., no kids, dual high incomes for 20+ years, non-extravagant lifestyle; particularly relevant for this forum...) If you counted all of these, I have no doubt our unemployment rate would at least double, if not triple. But that would be a ridiculously stupid number to even think about -- none of the above people want a job (or want a 12 month job); why should we try to organize society around forcing them to work when they don't need to and don't want to?! I'm not claiming the current definition of "unemployed" is perfect, BTW. But IMO it's WAY better than yours...

tom_mellior 8y ago

> currently not earning their keep, but not actively searching a job (because they are on the dole) will not be unemployed Why? If you are on the dole but without any disability or other commitment, you are considered "available to start work", no? Being available is one of the typical conditions for getting unemployment benefits. > unable to take a job in the next two weeks because the are in a government job market program, will not be listed as unemployed That's true, and it's one of the reasons why it's not super meaningful to try to compare and interpret these figures without any additional information.

hmschreck 8y ago
This is how the BLS U3 statistic is arrived at. The U3 is the federal-level unemployment figure that is most commonly pointed to. The U3 specifically does not include discouraged workers, those who are underemployed, or those who simply aren't looking. As long as we are comparing apples to apples (i.e., these figures are all indicative of the same basic data with the same restrictions), there's no issue comparing them.
- tom_mellior 8y ago
  Some countries' job centers put jobless people into bullshit training courses that do nothing for them, but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while. Other countries do not do this. The "same restrictions" apply, but countries in the first category will have fewer "unemployed" people even if they have the same number of discouraged/underemployed/jobless/whatever people. Is that apples to apples?
  - macintux 8y ago
    > but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while Are there enough people to whom that distinction applies to be more than statistical noise relative to the other regional variations that would have an impact? Seems like a minor nit to pick in the grand scheme of things.

gpvos 8y ago

I thought that in most countries, if you are on the dole, you must search for work if you are capable, or you get a severe reduction in your financial support.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
There are some people that have just given up on finding a job; they're able and willing to work, but because of reasons they can't find a job. Those might be on the dole, but they might also be able to survive off of a single income. These stats should have a category "wants to work but can't find any, and is not entitled to benefits". Or "Able to work but doesn't need to because rich".
- ajuc 8y ago
  In my country if you are on a dole and the bureau of employment finds a job for you (usually not very nice job) - you have to take it or have a good reason why you can't (health for example). If you don't - you're left on your own. Also, unemployment benefits end after 6 months no matter what.
  - distances 8y ago
    > Also, unemployment benefits end after 6 months no matter what. What happens after six months if you don't have family willing to support you? You're on the streets?
    - ajuc 8y ago
      There are other social benefits unrelated to employement (for example for kids from poor families, etc), but in principle - yes. Now it's not so bad, you can find a job if you really want (it might be bad, but it's there). In 90s we had 20% unemployment and almost no social benefits. It was rough.
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      Quite literally, yes.

rsynnott 8y ago

> but not actively searching a job (because they are on the dole) Depends on the country, but in most to draw the dole you have to be "actively searching for a job" (at least in the sense that would count for these stats). What this figure _would_ exclude would be retired people and those on permanent disability.