Already
a common practice by the preachers of neoliberal ideology to hide its
failure as well as the transformation of capitalism into a brutal
Feudalism
globinfo
freexchange
“Economic
researchers say official statistics understate Portugal's
unemployment rates by reclassifying people who don't have jobs as
something other than 'unemployed.' Jochen Faget reports from Lisbon.”
“Until
recently, Portugal's prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, had a
reason to feel cheerful at the beginning of each month. That's when
the national statistics institute reports unemployment rate numbers.
Month after month, the unemployment rate sank, which the right-wing
governing parties, the PSD and CDS, naturally celebrated as proof of
the effectiveness of their economic policies. The crisis was over and
everything was improving, according to the prime minister. Only,
well, perhaps not. For the past two months, the unemployment rate has
been rising again. It has gone back over 14 percent. The statistics
agency has warned that unemployment, in an "extended sense,"
is actually around 22 percent in Portugal.”
“Since
2011, the statistical agencies of the European Union have not been
allowed to count unemployed people in training programs or government
funded job schemes as unemployed. And since 2011, Portugal's agencies
have practiced the arcane art of juggling employment statistics to
make things look better than they really are. European politicians
prefer lower unemployment figures rather than higher ones, and as a
consequence, there are now unemployment figures in 'narrower' and
'extended' senses. Mostly, the headline figures reported are the
lower, "narrower" ones.”
“'The
number of those who have made use of employment agency job creation
programs has risen enormously since 2013,' said Castro Caldas
[economist who works at CES]. At the end of 2014, this allowed
170,000 people to disappear from the unemployment statistics. If they
were included, that would add 3 to 6 percent to the figure.”
“The
researchers at CES have been looking at unemployment figures with
skepticism for some time, and repeatedly pointed out inconsistencies.
'Unemployment figures can really only decline in an economy that's
growing,' Castro Caldas said. 'So it seems very odd that the official
unemployment rate in Portugal sank whilst the economy stagnated.'
That, he said, was only possible through dodgy data classification -
neither the 300,000 mostly young, well-educated people who left
Portugal for other countries during the crisis years were counted in
the official unemployment numbers - nor were people who have given up
looking for work. The latter, who are officially called the
'discouraged unemployed,' are only counted as 'inactive,' and not
unemployed. The same is true of part-time or occasional workers who
want to work full-time.”
“Many
of the measures that the government has taken weren't aimed at
reducing unemployment so much as improving official employment
statistics, Castro Caldas said. Companies were in some cases given
grants in order to 'employ' unemployed people on an unpaid basis. The
unemployed were required to take on these often pointless jobs
because they would otherwise lose their welfare payments. 'That's
perverse,' Castro Caldo said.”
“...
the reality is what it is: 'One of five Portuguese citizens who is
able and willing to work can't find a job. Maybe one out of four.
Those are the real numbers.' Those numbers, however, are classed as
'unemployment in the extended sense' in the statistical agencies.
These numbers have lately been publicly reported, which has made the
prime minister, Passos Coelho, unhappy. What must have made him even
unhappier is that the agency corrected its December 2014 for
'unemployment in the narrower sense' upward by 0.5, to above 14
percent. This meant that the government could no longer claim, as it
had been doing, that the unemployment rate is falling in Portugal -
for even as counted in the statistically prettified 'narrower' sense,
it has been rising.”
Full
article:
“Did you know that there are
nearly 102 million working age Americans that do not have a job
right now? And 20 percent of all families in the United States do
not have a single member that is employed. So how in the world can
the government claim that the unemployment rate has “dropped”
to '6.3 percent'?”
“Well, it all comes down to how
you define who is 'unemployed'. For example, last month the
government moved another 988,000 Americans into the 'not in the
labor force' category.”
[...]
102(!) million working age
Americans that do not have a job right now? 20%(!) of all families
in the US do not have a single member that is employed? Do you
find these numbers exaggerated? Maybe not, if you read the
following story by the "eye-witness" Yanis Varoufakis.
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