Does the ILO Definition Capture All Unemployment?

Andrea Brandolini, Piero Cipollone () and Eliana Viviano

No 529, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: The labour market status of many non-working persons is at the boundary between unemployment and inactivity. Like the unemployed, they seek and are available for work; unlike them, their last search action was not recent enough to meet the ILO definition of unemployment. In this paper we examine by non-parametric tests how the transition probabilities of these out-of-the-labour-force job seekers differ from those of the unemployed as well as the other non-participants. First, using data from the European Community Household Panel, we show that in most EU countries these job seekers constitute a distinct labour market state. Second, we rely on information only available in the Italian Labour Force Survey to derive a measure of search intensity which we use to break down the out-of-the-labour-force job seekers. On the basis of their transition probabilities, the most active are indistinguishable from the unemployed.

Keywords: unemployment; ILO classifications; transition probabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J64 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does The Ilo Definition Capture All Unemployment? (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_529_04

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