No question about that, but the Swedes the Dutch or the Germnas are very tough to beat in that respect. My point was rather that even if you have the most splendid statistical apparatus in the world, that apparatus will perform in certain terrain better than in other - just like a Landrover and a Porsche. And our terrain tends to be a bit more rough than that in Europe, so even a statitical Porsche can get into a pothole.
>
>A Marxist should have no problem accepting the part of the official
>explanation of high European jobless rates - high minimum wages, the
>generous welfare state, etc. That's not the whole story - Maastricht has a
>lot to do with it too - but in Germany the choice isn't a job with Domino's
>or starvation in quite the stark way it is in the U.S. There just aren't
>the Domino's in the first place. Max's EPI colleague Eileen Applebaum says
>she's studied the U.S. and German input/output tables and finds the major
>structural difference between the two economies is a higher U.S level of
>purchased household services, from Domino's to nursing homes. Those are
>precisely the high-growth low-wage sectors the U.S. excels at.
Hmm. That sound plausible, but...
Here are the OECD employment (FTE) data by the type of activity (as % of total employment , excluding self employed) for some countries for 1989 (I do not have a later edition handy):
Soc& perspn Trade, hotels Hotels Total
services restaurants restaurants
(1+2)
US 14.8% 23.1% 1.4% 37.9% OZ 23.4% 19.2% na
42.6% JAP 19.9% 18.8% na
38.7% GER 10.6% 14.3% 2.3% 24.9% NETH 17.1% 16.5% 1.8% 33.6% SWE 5.1% 13.6% 2.1% 18.7% UK 10.2% 19.0% na
29.2%
Source: OECD, Nat'l Accounts (T. 15), Paris, 1992
Now if you compare that with the differences in unemployment rates from your original posting:
US - 5.4% OZ - 8.6% JA - 3.4% GE - 8.9% UK -9.7%
we should expect that countries with the highest share of employment in personal services and trade/hotel business (let's call it 'surplus labor absorption industries or SLAIN) should have the lowest unemployment, right?
Well, that is not exactly what we get here. The UK has a larger share of labour force in SLAIN than Germany (29.2% and 24.9% accordingly), but also a higher unemployment rate. The same hold of the US and Australia: US share in SLAIN is 37.9% vs. OZ's 42.6%, yet OZ has a higher unemplyment rate than the US - pretty much similar to those in Germany and the UK.
Moreover, FTE burger flippers account for a lower share of the US labour force than in Germany (.14% vs. 2.3% respectively).
So the bottom line is that while the US has a higher share of labour force in SLAIN than Europe, employment in SLAIN alone does not tell the whole story.
Another thought: But if we pursue the idea of SLAIN further, that suggests a rather artificial distinction between paid and unpaid (household) work. That distinction may be important for the GDP accounting - but what does it say about a country's capacity to engage its citizens in productive capacities (whether officially accounted for or not), quality of life, etc.?
In other words, suppose that we accounted for unpaid household work and converted it to FTE jobs and compared those combined paid and unpiad FTE jobs. Would that comparison be valid - in other words, is fixin' a dinner at home 'equivalent' to flipping burgers at a fast food joint? If so, would a higher (paid and unpaid) employment rate be more desirable?
Finally, I do not want to sound too conspiratorial, but... Methinks the unemployment rates are inversely proportional to union militancy - could there be a connection, say, the employers' strike to force unions into concessions?
Regards,
Wojtek