Comments on: How does the U.S. labor market compare now?

By: MYOB Training

MYOB Training — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:22:11 +0000

Goodwill programs are wonderful for persons without skills. But unemployment is also occurring among workers with excellent education and skills. For example, women with advanced degrees in science are often excluded from participating in the areas of their education. There needs to be a way that anyone who wants to work can sign up and obtain work, and not just menial, entry level labor.

By: Janet Brown

Janet Brown — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:18:32 +0000

Our leaders in Washington must seriously consider new and innovative policies that promote a better, more confident, prosperous, and secure America in the 21st century. One of the things I think we can do to help make that happen is support American businesses and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (http://bit.ly/oanAT). They're doing things to reach out and show people that they can get involved, too.

By: Lane Kenworthy

Lane Kenworthy — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:55:02 +0000

Laurent:

In the OECD’s annual publication Education at a Glance there usually is an appendix table titled “Percentage of the youth population in education and not in education.” It has the data you’re looking for.

In my Jobs with Equality book, I have a figure (10.15) that shows how this breaks down for women age 15-19 and 20-24 in various countries. France is particularly low on the share that are both in school and employed.

By: Laurent GUERBY

Laurent GUERBY — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:35:43 +0000

For France the first two tables of:

http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/detail.asp?reg_id=0&ref_id=ir-eec07&page=irweb/eec07/dd/eec07_nat_ptot.htm

Have lots of detailed information about activity and inactivity.

In France in 2007: 86.8% of 15-19 year old are in school, and 42.8% of 20-24 year old.

Do you know where to find comparable statistics for USA and other countries?

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:31:18 +0000

I agree with the concersn raised by Laurent Guerby. What is really needed is a measure of “economic activity”, including study and childraising as well as employment. I had a go at this with Australian data a while back, but never got it published.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:03:40 +0000

@himaginary: Oops, you’re right, I missed that the first time around.

By: Laurent GUERBY

Laurent GUERBY — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:30:04 +0000

For a slightly related subject looking at long range employment data 1948-2008 there’s a puzzle waiting to be solved:

http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2009/01/misleading-nature-of-unemployment.html

By: Laurent GUERBY

Laurent GUERBY — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:28:18 +0000

I obviously agree with your analysis of the wekaness of the “unemployment” definition (see data above).

However switching to broad employment/population is not exempt from issue (other than quality of jobs):

Having 100% employment rate for 15 to 24 year old means that …. no one is in school. Is that an economics optimum?

If no, why agregating 15 to 24 year old employment rate, a category where the optimum employment rate is unlikely to be 100%, together with say 25 to 54 year old where the optimum employment rate is likely to be 100% and then proclaiming the resulting number the highest the better make any sense ?

My answer is that looking at comparing E/P for work market status you should look at men 25-54 and women 25-54.

By: Laurent GUERBY

Laurent GUERBY — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:25:09 +0000

Some data from OECD 2007:

* men aged 25-54

employment divided by population
France: 88.3% (hence 11.7% jobless)
USA: 87.5% (hence 12.5% jobless)

normalized unemployment rate
France: 6.3%
USA: 3.7%

So with a slightly higher relative working population in this age/sex group France has … a 70% higher unemployment rate than the USA.

* women aged 25-54

E/P
FR 76.1
USA 72.5

unemployment
FR 7.7
USA 3.8

So here we have clearly more women working in France (3.6 percentage point) relative to their population but unemployment is 102% higher in France!

* conclusion

The bet is about the ability or inability of EU15 gov to manipulate unemployment numbers as USA gov does .

Employment/population is an objective measure. Unemployment is an extremely subjective measure and so it’s easy to get very wide discrepancies.

* question

Any paper studying this discrepancy in OECD normaized numbers? For male 25-54 there’s no real reason not to work, so what are all those USA men doing?

By: himaginary

himaginary — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:25:36 +0000

Very intriguing post.

However, the second plot contains only 19 countries, while the first one contains 20 countries. Why is France missing in the second one? Data availability problem?

Mitch:I think common denominator is used in the second plot. Both circle and diamond plots are changes from 2007Q4.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:14:47 +0000

The second plot is a little hard to read, I think; instead of a percentage I’d use an index (say, 2007Q4 = 100).

As it is, a 3% drop followed by a 2% drop would look the same as a 2% drop followed by a 3% drop, even though the cumulative fall would be different. Unless you used the same denominator for both percentages? Using an index would clarify the denominator question, by implying that the same denominator was used for both time periods.