Are You Really Unemployed?

Are you really unemployed? I mean, perhaps you don't have a job but that's no guarantee that you're included in the official government statistics. Today we've had another round of confusing job statistics from the USA. Yes, it's difficult to get an accurate snapshot of a huge economy every month, and yes, the figures do eventually get revised to something approximating the truth (although such revisions never make headline news), but even this official truth is designed to paint the rosiest possible picture.





Every country seems to do this and such massaged figures move stock markets - until analysts get to look at the real numbers. Problem is, such 'real' numbers no longer exist. You'd think that being unemployed or employed was an either-or state of being (sure, if you're freelancing then you employ yourself), but that just isn't the case with more and more people being out of work yet dropping out of the statistics. The above video is an amusing reminder not to believe the official figures, and yet... the figures make markets move.