Beyond the unemployment rate. An international comparison since the crisis[Au-delà du taux de chômage. Comparaison internationale depuis la crise]

According to figures from the French statistics institute (INSEE) published on 12 May 2017, non-agricultural commercial employment in France increased (+0.3%) in the first quarter of 2017 for the eighth consecutive quarter. Employment rose by 198,300 in one year. Despite the improvement on the jobs front experienced since 2015, the impact of the crisis is still lingering. Since 2008, employment trends have differed significantly within the OECD countries. Unemployment rates in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom are now once again close to those seen before the onset of the crisis, while the rates in France, Italy and particularly Spain still exceed their pre-crisis levels. Changes in unemployment reflect the gap between changes in the active population and changes in employment. An improvement in unemployment could therefore mask less favourable developments in the labour market, in terms of employment behaviour (changes in the labour force participation rate and the "unemployment halo") or an increase in precarious employment (involuntary part-time work, etc.). In this paper we take another look at the contribution of changes in participation rates and in working time duration relative to changes in unemployment rates and to a broader measure of the unemployment rate that encompasses the "halo of unemployment" and involuntary part-time work. [First paragraph]