Agricultural workers Although the countries involved in these comparisons may all be properly termed "industrial," some still provide employment for a substantial proportion of their labor force in agriculture. This is significant because, on the one hand, agricultural workers are often less productive than industrial workers and, on the other, because they are much less susceptible to unemployment. A high proportion of the workers in agriculture are self-employed or unpaid family workers, who tend, in slack periods, to work part time or withdraw from the labor force rather than seek another job with pay. Agricultural workers have been declining as a percent of the labor force in all of the industrial countries studied, as in nearly every country in the world. In the United States, in 1960, agriculture employed only about 1 worker out of 12, a distinctly smaller proportion than in most of the other countries. In Italy and Japan, about one-third of all workers were in agriculture (table 9) and in France about one-quarter. All of the countries had a larger proportion of workers in agriculture than the United States, except for Great Britain, where only about 5 percent of the workers were employed in this sector of the economy. TABLE 9-Importance of agricultural workers and of wage and salary workers in the economically active population, 8 countries, 1960 Srce International Labour Office, Year Book of Labour Statistics, 1960 and national publications. Figures partly estimated. Wage and salary workers Most other industrial countries have a lower proportion of wage and salary workers than the United States. The relative importance of agriculture, as noted above, helps to explain this but other factors, ch as the prevalence of small enterprises, play a part. Table 9 licates that fewer than half of the Japanese workers are paid a *ige or salary. In the remainder of the countries, with the exception of Great Britain, proprietors, the self-employed, and unpaid family orkers also play a more important part in production than in the United States. In Great Britain, however, a higher proportionabout 90 percent in 1960-receive a wage or salary. Пlours of work Both number of workers and average duration of work are important dimensions of labor supply. It is appropriate, therefore, to add a brief statement regarding hours of work in other industrial countries. The situation may be summarized as follows: 1. The long-term trend of hours of work in all industrial countries has been generally downward. 2. Many of these countries have recognized the 40-hour week as a goal, and a few have adopted it as the "normal" workweek, or as the basis for calculating premium overtime; for example, Australia, France (legally recognized), and Japan. In Canada, Germany (Federal Republic), Sweden, and the United Kingdom a number of collective agreements provide for a normal 40 hour week. 3. In practice, however, the 40-hour week for industrial workers is rarely achieved. In 1961 the average hours actually worked in manufacturing in selected industrial countries were as follows: 2 4. On the other hand, there is evidence that European workers receive a somewhat greater number of days off in terms of paid vacations and holidays than do American workers. Productivity Up to this point nothing has been said about the quality of the labor force in other industrial countries as compared with that in the United States. By many tests it would probably rank somewhat lower. Average years of education are greater in this country. and the American worker's reputation for versatility and for mechan ical aptitude is undoubtedly deserved. The high qualifications of European, Canadian, and Japanese workers have also been acclaimed however. American manufacturers with branch plants in other in dustrial countries have found skilled, intelligent workers to carry out the production process with high efficiency. It is well established, of course, that output per man-hour in this country is higher, on the average, than in competitor countries, by ratio of 3 or 4 to 1-in some cases even more. But this difference i due very largely to the superior equipment with which American workers are provided, a better organization of production, and (perhaps) to the larger scale of operation that is characteristic o American enterprise. Moreover, productivity in other industrial countries has bee increasing more rapidly in recent years than here. The increase i 2 See International Labor Organization, Year Book of Labor Statistics, 1962. manufacturing production per person employed in manufacturing, for example, increased as follows from 1951 to 1960: As a factor influencing unemployment, the rate of change in productivity is considerably more important than the established level at any given point in time. INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT I believe it will be apparent from the foregoing that the labor supply situation in other industrial countries is not generally more favorable than in the United States. A larger proportion of the population is in the labor market in other countries than here, and the rate of growth of the labor force in most countries has been no less rapid than our own. The workweek averages perhaps 10 to 15 percent longer than ours. Women workers are relatively about as numerous in the other industrial countries, and young workers are relatively more numerous. On the other hand, most other industrial countries maintain a higher proportion of workers in agriculture: they have relatively more proprietors, self-employed, and family workers. These are groups which, whether or not they work efficiently, make for stability in the labor market. The vicissitudes of the market tend to affect their incomes rather than their employ ment status. 3 The productivity factor is difficult to evaluate. In net, I believe it has tended to complicate the task of organizing the European labor market. The rate of unemployment provides only one test of success in labor market administration, but it is a very important one. It is significant, therefore, to compare the rates that have prevailed in the United States with those in other industrial countries. Published rates of unemployment European unemployment statistics differ greatly from our own, and are commonly believed to be much more strict in their definition of the unemployed. It is of interest to see what these statistics show, however, and the most widely published statistics for the United States and seven foreign countries are reproduced in the accompanying chart, which covers the period 1951-62. The chief indications of the statistics are as follows: 1. Unemployment rates in two of the eight countries-Italy and Germany-declined substantially during the period, the rate for the latter falling from 9 percent to less than 1 percent. The proportion of workers over 65 years of age is about the same in the United States as in other industrial countries. Unemployment rates of older workers in this country are for higher than for the labor force as a whole, but older workers tend to experience longer than average periods of unemployment. The data are taken from various issues of the International Labor Organization, Year Book of Labor Statistics, and from national sources. 2. The rates for two countries-the United States and Canada-rose irregularly, and in 1962 were considerably higher than those for any of the other countries except Italy. 3. Unemployment rates of the remaining four countriesFrance, Great Britain, Japan, and Sweden, were low throughout the period, with none reporting an annual average as high as 3 percent in any year. Unemployment rates adjusted to U.S. definitions Fortunately, most of these countries have also had a try at the sample survey approach to unemployment measurement, sometimes referred to as the American system. The official monthly unemployment statistics in Japan and Canada are now very similar to our own. The Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and Sweden have periodic sample surveys in addition to other, more widely known, systems of measurement. France has made sample surveys irregu larly and somewhat experimentally since 1950. Only Great Britain has never made a labor force sample survey, and in the case of that country we have had the advantage of Mr. Zeisel's research, which extended over a period of nearly a year. The sample surveys have not always used the same concepts and definitions as our own, but their general pattern has been the same as ours and the definitions, where they have differed, have been reasonably explicit. The surveys have been conducted by competent statisticians. Much supplementary information has been obtained, facilitating adjustment for differences in definitions. It has thus been possible to arrive at an estimate of the number of unemployed in each country measured in accordance with U.S. definitions and methods. Unemployment rates for each country for the years 1960-62-as published and after adjustment to U.S. definitions are presented in table 10. It is not necessary to comment on these data in detail. It is noteworthy, however, that adjustment to U.S. definitions does not change the comparative position of the United States very much. The adjustments result in lowering the unemployment rate of the foreign countries more frequently than raising them. adjusted figures for 1962 show this country second only to Canada in rate of unemployment, instead of third, after Canada and Italy, in terms of the unadjusted figures. The average rate of unemployment among the five European countries was a little lower after adjustment to U.S. definitions than in terms of the regularly published data. CONCLUSION The This exercise indicates pretty clearly that the systems used in other industrial countries for measuring unemployment do not generally understate the unemployment rate as compared with ours. The most common foreign systems do, in fact, exclude certain persons we count as unemployed the numerator of the ratio-but they also exclude these persons and their employed counterparts from the labor force the denominator. The resulting ratio may be reasonably comparable with our own. Both Italy and Japan suffered from a considerable amount of "underemployment," no reflected in the unemployment rate. |