Today’s chart comes from ShadowStats (h/t Velociraptor), and documents the change in unemployment since the GFC.
Similarly to the ABS, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has an interesting methodology in compiling its measures of unemployment, which has narrowed over time.
The broadest and most publicised measure is the U-3, when in fact U-6, which includes short-term discouraged workers and those forced to take part time work because no full time work is available. ShadowStats has adjusted U-6 as follows:
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment
So it pays to listen past the noise of headline numbers (and indeed the ABS has a very large confidence level when it reports), and look at the long term structural makeup of the labour market.