The unemployment statistsics should be recalculated in a different way. With the option of taking people out who are part of some retraining program, many governments have the unfair option of improving the unemployment statistics, which does not improve the actual unemployment. I read that Sweden regularly blackmails people into claiming they have either some mental or other health problem to improve the statistics. Particularly before the election the socialist party put pressure on unemployment offices to blackmail people into claiming they are nuts to manipulate to have them drop out of the statistics. So the actual unemployment is Sweden is really around 17% when calculated in a realistic way.

I’d love to find these figures for Finland.

But I think all country’s unemployed figures are cooked to some extent. For instance, do all working age people that are studying at e.g. university count as unemployed, after all one could argue that they are in an “activity aimed for gaining employment.”

Although, that said, I do think that the Swedish reporting method for unemployment figure needs to be more transparent, the official statistic is definately understating it significantly.

Apparently it’s around 88 000 for Finland. But the figure is pretty meaningless unless we know how many of those people get a real job afterwards because of the schooling, training or whatever.

For instance, do all working age people that are studying at e.g. university count as unemployed, after all one could argue that they are in an “activity aimed for gaining employment.”

I believe university people are neither considered “employed” nor “unemployed”. I can understand why an 18-year old university student shouldn’t exactly be considered unemployed. But these 30-somethings who get laid off and decide to take a couple courses?

#3 What do you think yourself? Training jobs are great for employers (free labour for up to 6 months per person), but hardly ever lead to jobs for jobseekers. The best it can do for an unemployed person is providing a todistus, so you can show you have been active (….in some shitty activity).

I also do not know the numbers, but once I read about the budget for the labour ministry. I was amazed about the amount of money that went to scholing and training compared to the total of benefits that unemployed received. I think those where about equal! Perhaps it’s easy to hide these kind of unemployed in statistics, but in the budgets they still show up…

Yes, I agree with the 18 year olds. They certainly wouldn’t be unemployed in my mind. But then, it is hard to determine sometimes why an older person is studying.. i.e. whether that is because they couldn’t find a job or whether they just want to study. I think one of the best things about our education system is that the pursuit of knowledge is not just seen as something to be done for primarily economic benefit in the long term; knowledge and learning can be just to enhance ones understanding of the world and just for the sake of the pursuance of knowledge itself (sorry I can’t explain this so well in English today for some reason).

he among other things suggested “fining lazy jobseekers” by the loss of one day’s benefit if they are not actively seeking for work.

Wow, what a fresh idea. This does lead to Spud’s dilemma in jobseeking, though. And who exactly is the proper authority to determine when one is a serious jobseeker?

9. Well, was it OECD or someone that calculated some staggering sum as Finland’s youth unemployment. When they investigated, they had calculated all the conscripts in the military as “unemployed”…

Put all the unemployeds on a course, unemployment problem solved!

It’s pretty much safe to say that the official unemployment statistics of Nordic welfare states should be doubled to arrive at the real unemployment figures.

Keep in mind too that in Europe people go to school for 6 years instead of 4 in the US. Thats two additional years out of the labor market, and labor statistics. Plus, in Finland, students are much less likely to work while in school than in the US where many do. (Yes, people in the US take more than 4 years, but Finns will take more than 6, right until their opintotukki runs out. Better yet, they head off for a second free degree, unlike in the US where the ‘burden of’ student loans push people into the workplace.)

Rubbish being talked again. Whatever the truth about Sweden’s unemployment rate there is one statistic that is relevant, which is the labour force participation rate. That’s the percentage of the population in work. Sweden actually has a higher participation rate than the US. The US benefits from a number of factors in their unemployment rate, including people who are doing part-time work and who thus get no benefit so don’t show up, the incarcerated( v.high number), people who have given up looking for work and so don’t claim benefit and housewives who don’t work because they’d rather sit by the pool.

So, if Sweden’s women were lazy, if it started throwing more people in jail, it gave nothing to long-term unemployed and it didn’t count part-time workers, it would be on a par with the US.

including people who are doing part-time work

Finland has the same problem, but it’s with these “precarious” workers who are constantly on short-term contacts and have zero job security. I reckon that’s why Finland’s unemployment rate was much lower than its annual unemployment rate.

I’d love to find a statistic that’s like, “Percentage of working-age population who wants a full-time, non-fixed term job” cause that’ll take into consideration all the part-timers in the states and precarious workers in Finland.

the incarcerated( v.high number), people who have given up looking for work and so don’t claim benefit

Yeah, that’s an excellent point, cause basically all these people out of work and on the government welfare. And there’s a fuckload of Americans in prison.

and housewives who don’t work because they’d rather sit by the pool.

Housewives who sit by the pool have a sugar daddy who’s paying their credit card bills and aren’t receiving any govt checks, they definitely should not be considered unemployed or employed.

Hey, many of those prisoners do work too! Ever hear of “Prison Industries?” Many states have prisoners doing real work, both to pay for their confinement and for job training.

Not for anything but whatever decrease in the demand for jobs by putting people in jail, surely is replaced by foreigners coming to work here from Finland, Sweden, and other countries. They are coming to take jobs that are not available in their own countries.

Prisons need skilled workers too. I can’t see how it helps decrease US unemployment. If anything, those released from jail are harder to employ, making it more difficult to reduce the unemployment number.

Fred Fry:

“Hey, many of those prisoners do work too! Ever hear of “Prison Industries?” Many states have prisoners doing real work, both to pay for their confinement and for job training.”

Hey, somebody might call that slavery, if you’re not careful. But then again, given the current adminintration in the U.S., they might even think that’s something good.