[jdietrich]

I can't speak for anywhere else, but the key problem in the UK is casualisation and underemployment. Lots of people are in work, but it's not good work. On one side, we've pushed people off welfare benefits through an increasingly punitive sanctions regime; on the other, we've allowed for a proliferation of insecure temporary, part-time and gig-based work. The unemployment rate is low, but there's still a severe shortage of work, we've just spread the jam thinner.

According to the official statistics, anyone working for at least one hour a week is counted as employed. If your objective is to reduce the unemployment figures, that's a loophole big enough to drive a bus through. We've got a million people in part-time work who want a full-time job but can't find one. We've got two million self-employed people earning less than the minimum wage. More people are working, but they aren't enjoying most of the rewards we associate with work.

That's before we consider the statistical black hole that is "economic inactivity" - about eight million people who aren't in the labour market and aren't seeking work. Maybe they're contented housewives and househusbands, maybe they've won the lottery, maybe they've been unemployed for so long that they've given up looking. We don't know and we don't care to ask.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ons-underemployment-double-u...

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/two-million-self-employed-adults...