Considering the 10.3% unemployment rate in the EU right now, I doubt your fellow Europeans share the same viewpoint.
(http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....)
(http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....)
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-chart...
The numbers in the EU are also manipulated, but not by such a wide margin. When Europeans talk about unemployment, the statistic they're using is equivalent to the broadest US U6.
Let's poke at it a bit. Does "long-term discouraged worker" mean that if someone works for a few years in their 20s, experiences some obstacles in pursing their preferred career, and decides stay-at-home parenting is more to their liking anyway, are they now permanently "unemployed?" How do we recognize the difference between a detached person who's taken up sculpting and a desperate person living at wit's end?
Do you count as a "long-term discouraged academic" if you once made strides toward pursuing an academic career but strayed into industry? Do we have an economic crisis in the professional sports sector because millions of aspirants are being trained but over 90% of them ultimately can't find jobs playing baseball?
There may be some value in exploring how we define employment, but categorically calling those stats "real" and other stats "manipulated" trips my tinfoil detector, especially since I never see actual economists referencing this data.
> 2001: US 4,8; Euro area 8,1
> 2011: US 8,9; Euro area 10,2