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April, 1988, Vol. 111, No. 5

An analysis of unemployment and other labor market indicators in 10 countries

Joyanna Moy

Unemployment rates declined in North America, Sweden, and the United Kingdom during 1987, but rose in Japan, France, and Italy and remained historically high in Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands. The United States was the only country among the 10 studied in which jobless rates have fallen below their pre-1980–82 recession levels. During the second quarter of 1987, the U.S. unemployment rate declined markedly, and by December was 5.8 percent—its lowest level in 7 years. (See table 1.)

In 1986, employment increased in all countries studied. Job growth accelerated in North America, Australia, Japan, Germany, and Italy, and resumed in France. In the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, employment growth tapered off.  (See table 2)

Employment continued to increase in all countries studied in 1987, but France and Italy. In France and Italy, the level of jobs was stagnant. Data for 1987 indicate an acceleration of employment growth for the United Kingdom and Sweden, about the same rate of growth as in 1986 for the United States, Canada, and Japan, and slowdowns in job creation for Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands.

This article compares unemployment, employment, and related labor market statistics in the United States and nine foreign industrial nations—Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.¹  It also introduces comparative civilian employment-to-population ratios, by sex, and briefly discusses comparative unemployment rates published by two other organizations—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Statistical Office of the European communities (EUROSTAT).

This excerpt is from an article published in the April 1988 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

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Footnote

1 Historical data are available upon request. Selected historical data appear in the Current Labor Statistics section of the Review.

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