It seems to me that the unemployment stats that most governments issue are patently false. They don't count people on "training programs" or those who have simply given up trying to find work because they know none is available. In 1978, unemployment in the UK was about 1 million. Now it is 2.4 million. However, in the intervening 18 years, the definition and method of counting the unemployed has changed several times. Each change led to fewer and fewer people being counted. I think that if the same method of counting unemployment was used now as was used in 1978, then people would see that the total number unemployed is really closer to 3.5 or 4 million than the 2.4 million which official statistics claim.
