A National and an International Unemployment Rate in Austria

With Austria's membership in the EU the compilation of internationally comparable labor market data has become obligatory. The internationally comparable household survey results in much lower unemployment than the national administrative sources. The difference is largely due to the fact that persons who are registered as unemployed are, by international definitions, not to be counted as unemployed if they are on lay-off and have a job to return to after some waiting time (usually seasonal workers); nor are those who are working on a casual basis while searching for a better job. An internationally comparable unemployment rate can be approximated by administrative data, which may be necessary at times given the time lag of the microcensus data. It is meaningful to continue to calculate unemployment rates on the basis of administrative data to ensure not only the timely availability of data but also a detailed disaggregation by region, age, sex, profession, a breakdown which allows efficient targeting of labor market and social policies.