Darin Fitzpatrick Jul 28, 2015:

You could certainly shorten your descriptions to "German federal unemployment" and "ILO unemployment" for subsequent occurrences.

Ramey Rieger (X) Jul 28, 2015:

w/Tony & Sibilia Your solution's fine and Phil is right, too

nruddy (asker) Jul 28, 2015:

That's great, Sibila! I don't think you could really apply them here, as you say, but it's good to know. One site has
"U3 is the official unemployment rate. U5 includes discouraged workers and all other marginally attached workers. U6 adds on those workers who are part-time purely for economic reasons."

philgoddard Jul 27, 2015:

Germany and Euroststat may calculate it differently, but both words mean unemployment rate.

Sibila T Jul 27, 2015:

U-3 vs. U-6 unemployment rate in the US I'm actually with Tony and think that your suggestion is fine - define the terms once and then stick to that.

But I did want to let you know that I found this, which just shows that the US makes similar distinctions in its statistics
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/03/chart-whats-the-real-unemploy...
They are probably not terms that you want to use unless you can be absolutely sure that they are calculated the same way.

TonyTK Jul 27, 2015:

I think ... ... your own suggestion is the only feasible option if you want to avoid any ambiguity.

nruddy (asker) Jul 27, 2015:

Different calculations No. They are calculated in different ways.
Here is the context:
Die Zahl der Arbeitslosen sinkt nach Ifo-Schätzungen um 135.000 (2015) auf unter 2,8 Mio. Personen und 2016 um weitere 119.000 Personen, so dass die Arbeitslosenquote (BA-Definition) von 6,7 Prozent im Vorjahr auf 6,3 Prozent (2015) und 6,0 Prozent (2016) sinkt. Die international vergleichbare Erwerbslosenquote (ILO-Konzept) verbessert sich im Rahmen der Prognose in diesem Jahr auf 4,3 Prozent und im nächsten Jahr auf 4,1 Prozent (2014: 4,7 Prozent).

Background: Germany's national unemployment figure counts the number of people who have registered with the federal government as looking for work, divided by the number of people who have jobs. The official unemployment figure does not, however, include people who are not employed, but are also not looking for work. It also counts as 'employed' people who are in subsidized training programmes, people who are on sick leave, and a few other categories of people who are not actually at productive work.
Eurostat counts as 'unemployed' people aged 15 to 74 who are not working, have looked for work in the last four weeks, and are ready to start work within two weeks...

philgoddard Jul 27, 2015:

Are you sure it's not just using synonyms to avoid repetition? Can you give us an example showing that a distinction is being made between them?