[lbo-talk] Brad DeLong's dubious view of layoff restrictions

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Sun Apr 2 15:29:42 PDT 2006


So, does this necessarily mean that things are better in the U.S. What if the higher rate in the U.S. mean that fewer people can afford to retire?

Joanna

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


>--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Isn't unemployment simply counted better in places
>>like France and German
>>than the U.S.? Wouldn't a more realistic accounting
>>of unemployment and
>>underemployment and misemployment in the U.S. reveal
>>that a "flexible" labor
>>force does not provide much more than the inflexible
>>kind in Germany and
>>France?
>>
>>
>
>Maybe, maybe not. However, you can calculate labor
>force participation rate in relation to working age
>population (15+ years of age), which does not depend
>on counting the unemployed as distinguished from those
>not in the labor force.
>
>Based on the ILO data http://laborsta.ilo.org/
>the ratio of total employment to working age (15+)
>population in 2004 in France is 50.2%, in Germany it
>is 50.5%, and in the US it is 59.6%. These ratios
>clearly suggest that the US has a genuinely higher
>employment rate than either France or Germany and this
>is not an artifact of "creative accounting" for the
>unemployed.
>
>Wojtek
>
>
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