[candiodari]

Governments have a vested interest in keeping the numbers low. Right now people who don't want a job (e.g. stay-at-home-parents) aren't in the workforce. Also it's counting jobs vs people in the labor force. Meaning if someone has 2 jobs, there's really also an extra unemployed person. Also 1h/week counts as a job.

Without those modifications US unemployment is over 10%, EU unemployment well in the 20% even in the Netherlands.

An even fairer measure would be "active population" which is number of people working on jobs divided by the full population. Of course at that point babies and comatose patients count as unemployed, but I think it's fair because it correctly points out that the employed have to pay (in work, not money) for the entire population.

At that point US is high 30% unemployed, EU low 40% (about a 5% difference).