In a startling turn of events, the unemployment rate in Germany for October has surged past expectations, signaling a significant challenge for the nation's economic outlook. The Federal Employment Agency (BA) reports a seasonally adjusted increase of 30,000 in unemployment figures, marking a stark contrast to the previously predicted 15,000. The nation's unemployment rate has risen to 5.8%, confounding economists who had anticipated a more modest increase.
33 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023
Do German unemployment figures have the same methodological issues as American?
reply
179 sats \ 3 replies \ @TomK OP 2 Nov 2023
Oh yes. It's worse. For example: people over 58 do not appear in the statistics.
reply
0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023
Some of the American metrics focus on working age, too, but I think that goes to 65.
reply
179 sats \ 1 reply \ @TomK OP 2 Nov 2023
Both take out hundreds of thousands by recognizing them as ''disabled''
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023
Our disability program is structured in a way that makes it very difficult to ever rejoin the labor force. It's supposed to disincentivize going on disability support, but it's created a huge population of people who basically aren't allowed to work.
reply
33 sats \ 1 reply \ @ramenbased 2 Nov 2023
i have always found unemployment numbers to be low. we peaked at 12% in the early 2000's or so, and have been down only since. i don't know about you folks, but at my dayjob i almost daily have interactions where i think to myself "how is anyone paying this person money". i joke to my boss sometimes that we really need a hard hitting recessions to filter out all the idiot clients.
i know in the economicel world, employment is this hugely important metric. low is good, right? the FED itself is on record for saying something like "yea who cares if we pump the fuck out of stonks bro, employment is low so what hold this QE nerd". i strongly believe that anything below 10% is artificially pumped up employment that leads to people doing nothing but browsing facebook all day.
if the coofid-era has taught me anything, it's that stocking shelves and driving food in a truck are essential jobs, while cardigan wearing steve in his homeoffice -- thinking that this is like a struggle of some sorts -- is as fucking irrelevant as could be.
and this is my main gripe with economic metrics. like who is actually losing their jobs? if it is sarah from marketing who has been working with computers for 15 years but still cant figure out how to transfer files, well then thats probably a good thing.
what actually is the cost to having so many people employed. i bet it would probably be economically more reasonable to just pay people social welfare to do nothing instead of propping up the economy for two decades with QE just so fucking karen can post selfies at her cute office with her macha latte coffee.
reply
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TomK OP 2 Nov 2023
The unemployment numbers are made up a big way. It's a distraction from reality.
reply