IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecm/emetrp/v67y1999i1p147-162.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen R. G. Jones
  • W. Craig Riddell

Abstract

Although the unemployment rate is one of the most widely cited and closely monitored economic statistics, the definition and measurement of unemployment remain controversial. An important issue is whether non-employed persons who display a marginal attachment to the labor force (for example, those who are available for and desire work but are not searching for work) should be classified as unemployed or non-participants. Although this issue has been extensively debated, it has never been tested empirically. This paper carries out empirical tests of this and related hypotheses using a unique longitudinal data set from Canada. We find within the marginally attached a "waiting" group whose behavior indicates that they would be more appropriately classified as unemployed rather than out-of-the-labor force. The remainder of the marginally attached exhibit behavior between that of the unemployed and the balance of non-participants, suggesting that the desire for work among non-searchers conveys substantial information about labor force attachment and future employment status. Our methods also apply to heterogeneity within the unemployed, and we investigate behavioral variation linked to differences in job search methods and reasons for entry into unemployment. Although those using "passive" job search do exhibit behavior somewhat distinct from "active" searchers, our results reject the practice of classifying passive job searchers as out-of-the-labor force. Overall, our results indicate that the non-employed are very heterogeneous, so that any single division into "unemployment" and "out-of-the-labor force" is unlikely to fully capture the variety of degrees of labor force attachment.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 1999. "The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 147-162, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecm:emetrp:v:67:y:1999:i:1:p:147-162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Reporting Errors and Labor Market Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1319-1338, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Hobijn, Bart & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2015. "On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-82.
    2. Laisney, François & Pohlmeier, Winfried & Staat, Matthias, 1991. "Estimation of labour supply functions using panel data: a survey," ZEW Discussion Papers 91-05, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Lalé, Etienne, 2020. "The ins and outs of involuntary part-time employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua D. Angrist, 2001. "Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 915-957, October.
    5. Tor Helge Holmås, 2002. "Keeping nurses at work: a duration analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 493-503, September.
    6. Robert E. Hall & Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2018. "Measuring Job-Finding Rates and Matching Efficiency with Heterogeneous Job-Seekers," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, January.
    7. François Langot & Shaimaa Yassin, 2015. "Reforming Employment Protection in Egypt: An Evaluation Based on Transition Models with Measurement Errors," Working Papers 918, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2015.
    8. Maximiliano Dvorkin, 2021. "International trade and labor reallocation: misclassification errors, mobility, and switching costs," Working Papers 2021-014, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Jun 2024.
    9. Stefania Albanesi & Aysegul Sahin, 2018. "The Gender Unemployment Gap," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 47-67, October.
    10. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    11. Philip Jung & Moritz Kuhn, 2019. "Earnings Losses and Labor Mobility Over the Life Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 678-724.
    12. de Nicola, Francesca & Giné, Xavier, 2014. "How accurate are recall data? Evidence from coastal India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 52-65.
    13. Das, Tirthatanmoy & Polachek, Solomon W., 2017. "Estimating labor force joiners and leavers using a heterogeneity augmented two-tier stochastic frontier," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 199(2), pages 156-172.
    14. Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2011. "Cyclical behavior of unemployment and job vacancies in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 214-225.
    15. Michael D. Hurd & Daniel McFadden & Harish Chand & Li Gan & Angela Menill & Michael Roberts, 1998. "Consumption and Savings Balances of the Elderly: Experimental Evidence on Survey Response Bias," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in the Economics of Aging, pages 353-392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2001. "The importance of employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Niklas Engbom, 2019. "Application Cycles," 2019 Meeting Papers 1170, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Stéfan Lollivier, 1994. "L'évolution du marché du travail dans les années quatre-vingt," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(3), pages 429-441.
    19. Jonas F. Schenkel & Li‐Chun Zhang, 2022. "Adjusting misclassification using a second classifier with an external validation sample," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(4), pages 1882-1902, October.
    20. Mezza, Alvaro & Buchinsky, Moshe, 2021. "Illegal drugs, education, and labor market outcomes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 223(2), pages 454-484.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecm:emetrp:v:67:y:1999:i:1:p:147-162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.