Reality Underemployed: time for truth in jobless figures

It might be time for the unemployment rate published by Australia’s Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to be put out to pasture. Like a faithful old Clydesdale that has ploughed paddocks and carted hay for decades, the unemployment rate has been put to some demanding tasks. While it has been replaced by the steam engine that  is Roy Morgan’s real unemployment rate, we may need to consider other alternatives altogether.

Because it also depends on what we wish to achieve.

Neither of the two most oft-quoted measures of Australia’s jobless – the ABS and Roy Morgan – is satisfactory today. The ABS rate, currently at 7%, understates the level in several ways. It counts only those actively seeking work in the four weeks up to the reference…