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For this reason I use the employment rate instead. The unemployment rate, as you've correctly pointed out, is very narrowly defined. Obviously so as to trick vo

For this reason I use the employment rate instead. The unemployment rate, as you've correctly pointed out, is very narrowly defined. Obviously so as to trick voters into thinking that everything is fine. The employment rate can't really be gamed like that. The second major issue is under-employment. You could have a PhD in AI and as long as you're working 20 years a week at a pizza place, you're "employed." Unfortunately this isn't solved by using the employment rate. There are various ways to measure this but they all contain some measure of subjectivity.

dfdydx 1mo ago
I don't understand the issue with saying that someone who is employed is ... employed. If the claim is that a single number (the unemployment rate) does not capture all the high dimensional features of society & work, then well of course! If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? It's not a particularly contentious position though I don't see any way forward - even with a _single_ number to discuss, half this thread is making wrong claims about its methodology.
- johnnyanmac 1mo ago
  >If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? Yes, the gaslighting is the biggest problem. If we can't admit there's a problem (and politicians never want to admit the numbers are bad unless [other team] is in charge) then we can't begin to approach a real solution. >It's not a particularly contentious position though You'd be surprised. Even colloquially, that single number is how a lot of people try to justify that "job market is good, people are lazy". Because that person is not in a situation of searching for a modern job. This thread getting it right or wrong is irrelevant to that end. This isn't a board full of policy makers nor economists (at least, I don't think it is...)
- Gareth321 1mo ago
  You're applying nuance to a discussion which so often does not lend itself to nuance. Successive governments love to focus on the unemployment figure as though that is the mark of a healthy jobs market. As you've pointed out, it's not. It's not even close. We should be speaking about it far less, and about other, more qualitative metrics far more. We don't, though, and the cynical reason is that the unemployment metric was designed to make things appear better than they are.
  - dfdydx 1mo ago
    I guess it depends were you live, but in $HOMECOUNTRY, politicians also talk about wage levels (esp. their evolution vs inflation), etc.
- thayne 1mo ago
  The problem is that even as a single number, unemployment just isn't a very useful metric. Unemployed + underemployed is probably closer to what people care about, but it would probably be better as two separate numbers, and even then there is difficulty in defining both unemployed and underemployed, and accurately measuring them.
georgemcbay 1mo ago
> You could have a PhD in AI and as long as you're working 20 years a week at a pizza place, you're "employed." I would hope that someone who can work 20 years a week gets paid a lot, even if they work at a pizza place!
- theandrewbailey 1mo ago
  I guess it would take a PhD in AI to run enough agents to cram 20 years of work into one week. The token cost must be brutal though.
a3w 1mo ago
Well, about 40 percent of unemployed people (i.e. receiving benefits) are employed in Germany. And in the other direction, not receiving benefits meaning "not unemployed", and "in re-trainings", or sometimes "too old" means not calculated in, either.

dfdydx 1mo ago

I don't understand the issue with saying that someone who is employed is ... employed. If the claim is that a single number (the unemployment rate) does not capture all the high dimensional features of society & work, then well of course! If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? It's not a particularly contentious position though I don't see any way forward - even with a _single_ number to discuss, half this thread is making wrong claims about its methodology.

johnnyanmac 1mo ago
>If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? Yes, the gaslighting is the biggest problem. If we can't admit there's a problem (and politicians never want to admit the numbers are bad unless [other team] is in charge) then we can't begin to approach a real solution. >It's not a particularly contentious position though You'd be surprised. Even colloquially, that single number is how a lot of people try to justify that "job market is good, people are lazy". Because that person is not in a situation of searching for a modern job. This thread getting it right or wrong is irrelevant to that end. This isn't a board full of policy makers nor economists (at least, I don't think it is...)
Gareth321 1mo ago
You're applying nuance to a discussion which so often does not lend itself to nuance. Successive governments love to focus on the unemployment figure as though that is the mark of a healthy jobs market. As you've pointed out, it's not. It's not even close. We should be speaking about it far less, and about other, more qualitative metrics far more. We don't, though, and the cynical reason is that the unemployment metric was designed to make things appear better than they are.
- dfdydx 1mo ago
  I guess it depends were you live, but in $HOMECOUNTRY, politicians also talk about wage levels (esp. their evolution vs inflation), etc.
thayne 1mo ago
The problem is that even as a single number, unemployment just isn't a very useful metric. Unemployed + underemployed is probably closer to what people care about, but it would probably be better as two separate numbers, and even then there is difficulty in defining both unemployed and underemployed, and accurately measuring them.

georgemcbay 1mo ago

> You could have a PhD in AI and as long as you're working 20 years a week at a pizza place, you're "employed." I would hope that someone who can work 20 years a week gets paid a lot, even if they work at a pizza place!

theandrewbailey 1mo ago
I guess it would take a PhD in AI to run enough agents to cram 20 years of work into one week. The token cost must be brutal though.

a3w 1mo ago

Well, about 40 percent of unemployed people (i.e. receiving benefits) are employed in Germany. And in the other direction, not receiving benefits meaning "not unemployed", and "in re-trainings", or sometimes "too old" means not calculated in, either.