There was an interesting article in the
Financial Times about youth unemployment on Monday. Hot on the heels of the
recent revision by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that has cast doubt
on last year's UK double-dip recession, it served as a timely reminder of how
dangerous it can be to rely on statistics or to accept them at face value.
Both the OECD and the United Nations have
recently warned that the spiralling rates of youth unemployment across many
advanced economies will have severe consequences following the latest reported
figures showing that nearly a quarter of European under-25s are now unemployed.
A truly terrifying statistic, particularly in Greece and Spain where the figure
is over 50%, and Italy and Portugal where it is 40%, until we get beneath the
headline, and let me quote the FT's Kate Allen in explaining.
"Youth unemployment figures are
meaningless without understanding what proportion of a country's young people
are economically active." "Unemployment figures only reflect the
proportion of the population who are economically active i.e. looking for a
job, but unable to find one."
'Youth' in this context is defined as young
people aged 15-24 and inactivity rates can be expected to be very high with
many in education or training. Taking this into account the FT calculates the
true youth unemployment rate in Spain to be marginally over 20%, Greece about
17%, Portugal 15%, and Italy 11%. Indeed, on this basis the unemployment figure
for European young people is fewer than 10% rather than the reported almost
25%.
There are conflicting opinions about who
originally said "lies, damned lies and statistics" but, whoever it
was, we should bear their words in mind when we read or hear numbers being
quoted in support of a view or argument. Context can be all-important!
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