Why do Germany and France have consistently higher unemployment than the UK or US?

now i feel redundunt(er) and useless(er)

Although this still holds true it's not as true as it used to be, since the government moved from the claiment count to the much more accurate ILO figures.

Surely immigration is equally significant in the UK or US? And don't France and Germany have large deficits (above EU limits at least)?

Immigration as a proportion of population has been significantly higher in France and Germany than the UK. And it's not so much the defecit in absolute terms than is key here it was the ammount by which the governments were able to increase their defecits. The UK was much more sucessful at paying back defecits during the boom years and had more room to manouver in the bust years. Of course this comes back to the cost of Germany and France's superior public services.....

Have you heard of New Deal? I still believe that if all EU countries were forced to use the same criteria in compiling unemployment figures you would see the UK's current figures rocket up.

I think most economists agree that that France and Germany have
higher strucural unemployment. As do most EU countries with large public sector and spending: Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, etc.

Economics is like Psychoanalysis - it's a good idea, be great if it was scientifically rigorous, but it isn't.

I bow to anyone's greater knowledge on manipulating unemployment statistics. I do know, however, that the French government is constantly dreaming up schemes to get people off the unemployment register and into largely theoretical training programs, pseudo-jobs and suchlike...

Ed, are you suggesting that there in fact is a trade-off between superior public services and unemployment? I think this is the nub of the matter.

The 1980s would have been much, much worse if there was no North Sea oil.

isn't that Momus?

There is the slightly spurious point about 'hidden unemployment' whereby people claim incapacity benefits/retire early but are actually keen to return to work, but don't believe there "are any jobs out there." These people show up as economically inactive - figures also published, so they're not really hidden at all.

But this is a much larger problem in the UK than Germany/France I believe, so there's probably something in it.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Who is counted as unemployed?
Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.

How are the unemployed counted in other countries?
The sample survey system of counting the unemployed in the United States is also used by many foreign countries, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Economic Community. More recently, a number of Eastern European nations have instituted labor force surveys as well. However, some countries collect their official statistics on the unemployed from employment office registrations or unemployment insurance records. Many nations, including the United States, use both labor force survey data and administrative statistics to analyze unemployment.

-That makes the REAL unemployment rate go even higher.

in a bad mood, saying gnite

The unemployment rate plus the "looking for full time but could only find part time" rate for March was 6.67%.

Add March's 514,000 discouraged workers, people who wanted to work but did not believe there were any jobs available for them, and so did not look for work in the past 4 weeks, and you get 7.02%

The Unemployment Rate in Germany for March, 2004 was 10.9%. I cannot find a clear definition of how Germany counts unemployment, but it appears that anyone who participates in economic activity is employed, same as the US (thus the 10.9% German unemployment rate seems to use the same definition as the US's 5.7% unemployment rate).

Wrong again:

Where do the statistics come from?
Because unemployment insurance records, which many people think are the source of total unemployment data, relate only to persons who have applied for such benefits, and since it is impractical to actually count every unemployed person each month, the Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration project. It has been expanded and modified several times since then. As explained later, the CPS estimates, beginning in 1994, reflect the results of a major redesign of the survey.

Current Population Survey, a sample of 60,000 households; data are collected by personal and telephone interviews. Basic labor force data are gathered monthly; data on special topics are gathered in periodic supplements.

Now you've repeated your claim that the BLS uses a faulty methodology, but you have not admitted that your understanding of thier methodology was flawed in the first place.

So explain to me:

1) How do the methodologies of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the German Federal Statistical Office differ?

2) Were you aware that the BLS uses the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households in collecting data, not just unemployment benefits records, and that the unemployment rate has nothing to do with the percentage of the workforce receiving such benefits? Are you aware of these things now, after I've repeated them three times?

2) Does your misunderstanding of the BLS methodology fully explain your belief that their figures represent "about half of the ACTUAL unemployment," and if not where does the BLS lose the "other" half that Germany doesn't?

3) Is there reason to believe that Germany counts their homeless population better than the United States? The best estimates are still estimates, but the statistics I can find online for both countries suggest 1.2% in the United States and .6% in Germany, but Germany doesn't count the homeless as unemployed either. You're still claiming that the BLS is not accounting for almost half the unemployed population *that Germany successfully gathers statistics on*.

comparable statistics, or at least statistics with the methodology explained.

Not a controversy among whom? I find it hard to believe that the Bureau of Labor Statistics continues to use a methodology that is universally agreed to grossly underestimate the thing being measured.

Even if the methodology is flawed in producing an accurate unemployment rate, you could at least explain how their estimate is not only flawed but inconsistently so.

If it's so obvious to anyone with a clue how grossly inaccurate the BLS's unemployment rate estimate is, you'd think it would be possible to explain how in a sentence or two that can't be shot full of holes by Clueless Snotty Stuart and his Magic Google Stick.

You'd think economists would stop paying attention to the BLS if their numbers don't mean anything. You'd think they'd stop comparing countries whose employment statistics were like apples and oranges.

You'd think you could explain why the US gets away with flawed numbers while Europe uses these "accurate" estimates that make them look so bad.

We're not arguing whether or not the BLS rate is the *actual* rate. We're arguing whether or not US and European rates can be meaningfully compared, and you've failed to provide any explanation as to why they cannot, besides "Oh God its sooooo obvious.. and Sociologist would tell you..." So tell me.

Because the UK government has an explicit aim of achieving full employment, and has implemented schemes such as the New Deal.

The good point is that the UK has very low unemployment, and it's less of a drag on the economy than in France, Germany etc.

The bad point is that UK productivity (output per worker) lags France, Germany, and the US considerably which doesn't bode well for the future of the economy.

"Apple pie is great."

"Wrong again!!"

lol @ orbit