> European countries, by contrast, have mostly not changed their definitions of unemployment since, and have a relatively sane definition of what it means to be

> European countries, by contrast, have mostly not changed their definitions of unemployment since, and have a relatively sane definition of what it means to be employed. This is not to say it's perfect -- far from it. But at least they're not counting 1h/week Uber drivers as employed. To quote directly from an official EU website [0] (which I presume is how employment statistics is defined within the EU): > Employment (persons in employment): > Employed persons comprise persons aged 15 years and more who were in one of the following categories: > (a) persons who during the reference week worked for at least one hour for pay or profit or family gain. > (b) persons who were not at work during the reference week but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent. --- From reading how the US government defines employment/unemployment/labor force participation [1], the definitions appear to be materially the same (employed means working for at least one hour in the EU and for at least 1 second in the US or being temporarily absent, unemployed means not being considered employed and having actively looked for work in the last 4 weeks, and not being in the labor force means not being employed and not being unemployed). [0]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/EU_labour_force_survey_-_methodology#EU-LFS_concept_of_labour_force_status https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [1]: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm