On Dec 22, 2012, at 7:12 PM, Jason Hecht <jayhstata at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some money manager on Bloomberg was going on a rant about how France
> has had an unemployment rate above 9% since 1992 (according to the FED
> FRED database, it has averaged 9.3% from 1992-2011) .
>
> Is this because the France have a more accurate "official" measure,
> equivalent to our all-in "U-6" (1994-2011, 10.2%)? Or is there a
> more nuanced reason?
The OECD and the BLS massage international unemployment rates into comparable figures. Here's the BLS version:
http://www.bls.gov/fls/intl_unemployment_rates_monthly.htm
Short answer: no.
Doug