[tom_mellior]

Some countries' job centers put jobless people into bullshit training courses that do nothing for them, but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while. Other countries do not do this.

The "same restrictions" apply, but countries in the first category will have fewer "unemployed" people even if they have the same number of discouraged/underemployed/jobless/whatever people.

Is that apples to apples?

[macintux]

> but being in a course means you are not counted as "looking"/"available" for a while

Are there enough people to whom that distinction applies to be more than statistical noise relative to the other regional variations that would have an impact?

Seems like a minor nit to pick in the grand scheme of things.

[tom_mellior]

Austria is regularly criticized for doing this through such measures and others (pushing people into early retirement as well).

Here is a thing in English that seems to come for free if you give them bogus personal data: https://www.agenda-austria.at/en/publication/austria-the-lan...

A longer German blurb about this study is here: https://www.agenda-austria.at/oesterreich-das-land-der-verst...

They claim 250,000 hidden unemployed for 220,000 "official" unemployed for Q1 2013, i.e., the official figures would be off by a factor of more than 2. But they don't say how many of those hidden unemployed are in training courses. Maybe the full study does say, I can't be bothered.

[macintux]

Thanks, surprised it's that significant of an impact.

[lmm]

Yes it is, since those countries allow people to claim unemployment while not looking for work (via a rather silly rigmarole way of doing so, but still). At the sharp end, there are fewer people in that country who want a job (whether because they'll lose their unemployment if they don't get one or otherwise) and can't get it.

[tom_mellior]

All that is true for the unemployment rate itself. It just means that the unemployment rate is not a useful proxy for a country's economic health, as it is often taken to be.