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Unemployment in the UK is Now So Low It's in Danger of Exposing the Lie Used To Create the Numbers (businessinsider.com)
Unemployment in Britain is now just 4.5 percent. There are only 1.49 million unemployed people in the UK, versus 32 million people with jobs. This is almost unheard of. Unemployment was most recently this low in December 1973, when the UK set an unrepeated record of just 3.4 percent. From a report: The problem with this record is that the statistical definition of "unemployment" relies on a fiction that economists tell themselves about the nature of work. As the rate gets lower and lower, it tests that lie. Because -- as anyone who has studied basic economics knows -- the official definition of unemployment disguises the true rate. In reality, about 21.5 percent of all working-age people (defined as ages 16 to 64) are without jobs, or 8.83 million people, according to the Office for National Statistics. That's more than four times the official number. For decades, economists have agreed on an artificial definition of what unemployment means. Their argument is that people who are taking time off, or have given up looking for work, or work at home to look after their family, don't count as part of the workforce.
Use the "labor force participation rate" metric, not "unemployment". Unemployment is subject to "definitions", which are political by definition.
UK looks to be at 79%. It still doesn't account for people who have been bumped down from full-time to part-time to decrease regulatory costs, but it's the best number you'll get from people whose job it is to lie about how great the numbers are.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I don't know about the UK, but in the US they measure unemployment using several different metrics. Some of those metrics are designed to capture things like discouraged workers. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the following metrics labeled U-1 to U-6, but generally the press only talks about U-3:
U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)
U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers
U-5 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force
U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor
I'm not sure that any of these capture your specific point, but the BLS does look at different aspects of the problem.
In the US, there are many metrics that are reported and that help understanding the state of the labor force. Called U-1, U-2, ... U-6 which represent different aspect of the questions.
To pad this out - from Wikipedia:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates six alternate measures of unemployment, U1 through U6, that measure different aspects of unemployment:
U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks.
U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
U6: U5 + Part-time workers who want to work full-time, but cannot due to economic reasons (underemployment).
#DeleteChrome
net immigration was down in 2016.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.o...
And down YoY in the first quarter.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep...
So I guess either the population estimate or those stats have to be wrong (or there are lots of babies.)
Someone had to do it.
In some cases, because people in management justify their existence (and salaries) by the number of people that report to them. Add more employees, manager's importance goes up. That provides a strong incentive to have employees that don't do anything useful, but do report to you.
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