Karen in Austin Thence comes our true nobility by grace, It was not willed us with our rank and place. Chaucer
The numbers I work on are from the Labour Force Surveys (called, in America, the Current Population Survey) which are household surveys carried out on a large sample of the population. These count people, not jobs, (which the payroll statistics would do). So there shouldn't be a double count when one person holds two (or more) jobs.
The next part of this 3-part epic is about hourly rates of pay. I'll try to bring second jobs in there, since it seems like the right place. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Both from your comment and the and the OP, it seems some part of America's higher employment rates is in jobs that are not particularly productive, nor really wanted very much by their participants.
On the other hand, all this data massaging still leaves France with real lower employment rates for young and old people. Especially the old part must include serious numbers of people willing and able to work who can't find it. That's a poblem no matter how you measure it.
I object to the term "data massaging" however. I don't think I'm doing anything the "specialists" don't do all the time, knowing that they are creating headline statistics that will be used by different links in the info and media chain to reinforce a world view. One in which the "free market economies" have proved that their way is not only the best but inevitable. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
