Understanding work, your own included

Each organisation calculates its own in its own way. Comparing two rates published by different sources almost never makes sense.

A large share of the figures about work circulating in the press comes from commissioned studies. A few checks are enough to situate what they are worth.

The latter is a ratio whose denominator moves. The former relates employment to the population, which makes it less sensitive to movements into inactivity.

Since 1990, one survey has asked comparable questions in more than thirty countries. It is the field's most solid source, and it has its limits.

A 2013 study announced that nearly half of American jobs were automatable. Later revisions divided that figure several times over.

The two figures are published side by side and differ markedly. Their gap is itself information about the shape of the distribution.

Published figures vary twofold over the same period. The cause lies almost entirely in the question asked.

The published number comes from claims recognised by the insurance scheme. What is not reported appears nowhere, and that share is estimated by other means.

The indicator is a ratio between output and a volume of hours. Each of its two terms poses difficulties that commentary ignores.

France publishes an unemployment rate and a number of registrants that do not coincide. That is not a contradiction, they are two definitions.