Unemployment rates are severely under tracked.

[HappySqurriel]

Mr Khan said:

HappySqurriel said:

Yeah, a lot of posters on these forums (and throughout the internet) have been saying this for years. While there are several conspiracy theories why most governments choose such misleading methodologies to calculate statistics, the simplest and most reasonable explanation is that individuals would be less willing to support the government’s meddling in the economy if they knew how little benefit there was from it and how much damage they were doing.

That sounds like a conspiracy theory itself...

There are several ways the statistics can be calculated and presented, and governments typically choose the methodology which gives the "Best" picture and is easiest to manipulate.

If people desire full time employment but can only get part time employment, want a permanent position but can only get temporary work, want a job that utilizes their skills/education/experience but can only find more menial work, or are considered a non-participant but want a job your labour market has not fulfilled their needs well. If there portion of your labour market that is made up of these individuals is growing your labour market is getting worse even if the unemployment rate is stable; and (depending on the rate unemployment is falling) it can be argued that the labour market is getting worse even with falling unemployment.

The government has almost no ability to create permanent full time high-skilled positions in the short term, but they do have an amazing ability to create temporary, part time or low skill positions (and the ability to increase the number of non-participants in the economy). If the government accurately tracked the health of the labour market, rather than tracking the unemployment rate, it would be difficult to argue that their manipulation on the economy was effective; and (potentially) easy to argue that it was ineffective or damaging.