>On Sat, 1 Sep 2001, Christian Gregory wrote:
>
>> "This week, Japan announced that unemployment hit 5 percent, crossing
>> an important psychological threshold and a high not seen here in over
>> half a century.
>>
>> "Real unemployment is believed to be around 8.5 percent, as government
>> statisticians do not count people who give up looking for work or part
>> time workers, like homemakers, who lose their jobs."
>
>But I thought we don't count those people as unemployed either. Do we?
They're quicker to drop 'em out of the labor market in the Japanese stats. The broadest U.S. measure of unemployment, U-6 (which includes discouraged workers and unwilling part-timers), was 8.1% at last count.
Doug