Prior to the downturn, official unemployment figures only acknowledged 81 unemployed people – yes, 81 – in a country of 6.4 million.
Incredible number.
Incredible number.
The International Labor Organization defines being employed as anyone who works just one hour a week, which is 10 days per year (at a 40 hour work week).
This leads to countries such as Cambodia (0.3 - 0.5%) and Thailand (0.7%) claiming crazy low unemployment because grandmother sweeps the farmhouse flood once a week [0]. In reality the stats hide poverty. Another way to have high unemployment is to have most of the work done by migrants and deport them as soon as they don't have a job (UAE, 1.6%), or ensure the rent is high enough they are forced to leave if they lose a job (Gibraltar 1%).
In a functional developed economy you need people to move between jobs as supply and demand change, so a certain level of unemployment is expected.
[0] https://www.cambodiadaily.com/editors-choice/cambodias-low-j...
Absolutely. Technically someone who leaves an employer at the end of July and starts a new job in September is unemployed for one month. This is part of any statistic.
Put another way: it is almost impossible to have an unemployment rate below 1%, as you said.