More seriously this reminds me of how careful we have to be with the comparisons between the US and even the EU-15 (let alone EU-25). Greece, Spain, Portugal and more recently East Germany have all been "added to the union" in relatively recent history (certainly in "geological economic time"). Isn't this year the 20th anniversary for Spain
On another tangent, it's very interesting to look at these figures, particularly the breakdown for Sweden (87% employment rate in this group!) alongside the reports around the Swedish election citing discontent at a sluggish economy that is not providing enough jobs.
Now some of that is about disenfranchisement of 18-25 year olds, but there was also some indication of a large number on "disability benefits."
The fun thing about "flexisecurity" is that it riles up economists on the grounds of "moral hazard." Fundamentally it runs into the narrative of the "feckless poor" and causes a mess.
(Someone I know who works in education once received a memo from his boss. This was late summer, mid-nineties. The wording was to the effect that "This is all we currently have lined up for autumn. However, please be prepared for sudden goverment funding in case we are called upon to hide some unemployment".)
I like "geological economic time". (What would be "geological IT time" - Two years?) -----sapere aude
Maybe people are paid to do little or are counted as employed when they aren't really, which improves employment, but they are still paid, and they activity or lack thereof is then reflected in productivity numbers. Employment is counted relative to total population, which is a pretty well known number.
Unemployment is counted relative to "active population", an altogether fuzzier concept (and the easiest way to cheat on unemployment statistics is to move the active unemployed to the inactive - it's just a labelling trick and it costs nothing, as opposed to payign them to pretend to be working) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
