Registered unemployment (RU) compared with harmonised unemployed (LFS).
Date: 2006-04-04
Institutions: Eurostat
Subjects: EU statistics, employment statistics, labour market, unemployment

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ISSN 1725-065X

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Registered 
unemployment (RU)
compared with 
harmonised
unemployed

 (LFS) 

E U R O P E A N
C O M M I S S I O N

THEME
Population
and social
conditions

 
 
 
 
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Registered unemployment (RU) compared with harmonised unemployed

(LFS)

1 

Africa Melis and Britta Lüdeke2

Part 1 – General comments on discrepancies between both sources

Introduction

The ﬁ gures for the registered unemployed (RU) with the Public Employment Services (PES) are the most com-
monly used references for the analysis of labour market policies at national level. Unemployed persons need to 
register with the PES whenever they want to ﬁ nd a job and/or beneﬁ t from public support or to participate in a 
labour market policy measure, and this registration enables the Public Employment Services to calculate the lev-
els of unemployment registration and the monitoring of Labour Market Policy (LMP) measures, in other words, 
assessing the type of interventions needed and monitoring their impact.
The share of registered unemployed participating in labour market measures is a useful indicator for monitoring 
labour market interventions. However, most experts in the ﬁ eld of labour market policies are also familiar with 
the ofﬁ cial ﬁ gures on harmonised unemployment and are aware of existing discrepancies between the two data 
sets (see footnote 1 below and paragraph 2 for deﬁ nition).
Several studies exist at national level which explain the reasons for the discrepancies between both ﬁ gures, while 
there are not so many studies at an international level that try to summarize the main characteristics which ac-
count for these differences. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the differences and the com-
plementarities between the two main ofﬁ cial ﬁ gures for unemployment, namely data on “harmonised unemploy-
ment” (unemployment ﬁ gures provided by the Labour Force Survey-LFS, according to the International Labour 
Organisation  –ILO-  deﬁ nition)  and  data  provided  by  the  registers  of  the  Public  Employment  Services,  which 
collect data on “registered unemployment”, according to different national deﬁ nitions and rules. 
The ﬁ rst part presents the deﬁ nition and main characteristics of the LFS data on unemployment (survey data), 
and the deﬁ nition and main characteristics of the unemployment registered with the Public Employment Services 
(administrative data). In addition it shows some situations in which the registers are more restrictive than the 
survey and the reverse case. The article also identiﬁ es three groups of population which help to understand the 
discrepancies between both ﬁ gures in most countries.
The second part presents a detailed analysis of both sets of ﬁ gures (registered unemployed and LFS unemployed) 
in ﬁ ve countries, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland and Spain. It presents the deﬁ nition (national regulations) 
and ﬁ gures of registered unemployed and shows the comparison with the LFS ﬁ gures with special reference to 
different age groups.
Note that in 2005, substantial changes have been introduced in the Labour Force Survey in three countries, Spain, 
Austria and the United Kingdom, which lead to important changes in the data. However, this article does not take 
into account these changes or any other adjustments introduced in 2005 in the LFS data.

1  LFS is used in this article as synonymous for ILO deﬁ nition of unemployment. The deﬁ nitions applied in the Labour Force Survey are aimed at improv-
ing the international comparability of labour statistics by means of measuring employment and unemployment according to the International Labour 
Organisation (ILO). 

2  Britta Lüdeke works at the Bundesagentur für Arbeit Statistics, Germany and is the German representative in the Labour Market Policy Methodological 

Task Force. Africa Melis works at Eurostat, Unit F2 “Labour Market”, and is the responsible for the Labour Market Policy database. 

3

1 - The Labour Market Policy database as a source of national data on labour market interventions

The LMP - data collection was developed as an instrument which should contribute to improving the follow-up 
of the Employment Guidelines. The database concentrates on the identiﬁ cation of targeted labour market poli-
cies developed and implemented by EU countries as a result of the agreement they reached in November 1997 
to launch the European Employment Strategy (Employment Summit in Luxembourg), to provide more jobs and 
combat and reduce unemployment. The LMP methodology provides the deﬁ nitions and classiﬁ cation categories 
used to identify what is to be understood under the term “Labour market policies”, and includes a detailed de-
scription of the LMP-measures implemented in each country, as well as detailed metadata. 
The scope of the LMP database refers to “Public interventions in the labour market aimed at reaching its efﬁ cient 
functioning and to correct disequilibria and which can be distinguished from other general employment policy 
measures in that they act selectively to favour particular groups in the labour market”.

These “public interventions” are divided into nine categories by type of action: one base category of “labour 
market services” provided by the Public Employment Services (PES), six categories of “active labour market 
measures” (such as training, employment incentives, direct job creation or start-up incentives), and two categories 
of measures providing support for unemployed persons, or for early retirement.

In summary, the LMP database collects data on expenditure and participants in Labour Market Policy measures 
and presents three main advances as compared to previous sources of information: (1) detailed and comparable 
descriptions of each labour market policy measure, (2) detailed information on participants’ stock and ﬂ ows, with 
breakdowns by age, by gender, by previous labour status, by duration of unemployment prior to participation, 
etc... (3) detailed information of “Reference data”, including descriptions of the groups registered with the PES 
as “registered jobseekers” and those registered with the PES as “registered unemployed” which are a particular 
subgroup of the registered jobseekers especially relevant to this article. The database collects not only the num-
bers of registered jobseekers and registered unemployed, but it also collects detailed information on the national 
deﬁ nitions for the registered unemployed. Given that the registered unemployed are the main reference popula-
tion for LMP participants, this article tries to explore and compare the national rules for the registration of the 
unemployed in a number of countries and thus contribute to a better understanding of the discrepancies between 
the ﬁ gures on the registered unemployed and the harmonised unemployed. 

2 - Main characteristics of the Labour Force Survey data on unemployment

Labour Force Survey data on unemployment (LFS’U data) are deﬁ ned as harmonised data, or harmonised unem-
ployment ﬁ gures. These are survey data presenting the number of persons which correspond to the international 
deﬁ nition of the unemployed, measured by the labour force survey. The deﬁ nition of unemployment used in the 
Labour Force Survey3 (LFS), is as follows: 

Unemployment
1. - In accordance with the ILO standards adopted by the 13th and 14th International Conference of Labour Stat-
isticians (ICLS), for the purposes of the Community labour force sample survey, unemployed persons comprise 
persons aged 15 to 74 who were:
(a) without work during the reference week, i.e. neither had a job nor were at work (for one hour or more) in paid 
employment or self-employment;
(b) currently available for work, i.e. were available for paid employment or self-employment before the end of the 
two weeks following the reference week;
(c) actively seeking work, i.e. had taken speciﬁ c steps in the four week period ending with the reference week 
to seek paid employment or self-employment or who found a job to start later, i.e. within a period of at most 
three months.
For the purposes of point 1(c), the following are considered as speciﬁ c steps:
—  having been in contact with a public employment ofﬁ ce to ﬁ nd work, whoever took the initiative (renewing 

registration for administrative reasons only is not an active step),

3  For the full text of the deﬁ nition see Commission Regulation N° 1897/2000 of 7.09.00 implementing Council Regulation (EC) N° 577/98 on the organi-

sation of a Labour Force Survey in the Community concerning the operational deﬁ nition of unemployment (OJ – L 228/18 of 8.09.2000)

4

—  having been in contact with a private agency (temporary work agency, ﬁ rm specialising in recruitment, etc.) 

to ﬁ nd work,

— applying to employers directly,
— asking among friends, relatives, unions, etc., to ﬁ nd work,
— placing or answering job advertisements,
— studying job advertisements,
— taking a recruitment test or examination or being interviewed,
— looking for land, premises or equipment,
— applying for permits, licences or ﬁ nancial resources.

2. Education and training are considered as ways of improving employability but not as methods of seeking work. 
Persons without work and in education or training will only be classiﬁ ed as unemployed if they are ‘currently 
available for work’ and ‘seeking work’, as deﬁ ned in points 1(b) and (c).

3. Lay-offs are classiﬁ ed as unemployed if they do not receive any signiﬁ cant wage or salary (signiﬁ cant is set      
at = 50%) from their employer and if they are ‘currently available for work’ and ‘seeking work’. Lay-offs are 
treated as a case of unpaid leave initiated by the employer — including leave paid out of government budget or 
by funds (16th ICLS). In this case, lay-offs are classiﬁ ed as employed if they have an agreed date of return to work 
and if this date falls within a period of three months.

4. During the off-season, seasonal workers cannot be considered as having a formal attachment to their high-
season job because they do not continue to receive a wage or salary from their employer although they may have 
an assurance of return to work. If they are not at work during the off-season, they are classiﬁ ed as unemployed 
only if they are ‘currently available for work’ and ‘seeking work’, as deﬁ ned in points 1(b) and (c).

It should be noted, however, that in three countries, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the coverage of the 
survey starts only with the 16 year olds, thus potential unemployed who are aged 15, (although most 15 year olds 
will still be in education), will not be counted.
In  the  Labour  Force  Survey,  data  are  collected  through  a  questionnaire  which  a  representative  sample  of  the 
population is asked to complete. Since 2005, the survey is implemented quarterly. The adoption of this common 
deﬁ nition of unemployment in all Member States, combined with a great effort to harmonise labour force survey 
questionnaires, ensures a maximum of international comparability of labour market statistics. The Labour Force 
Survey (LFS) enables the calculation of comparable data on employment and unemployment across countries.

3 - Main characteristics of the registered unemployment (RU data)

Registered unemployment ﬁ gures are administrative data which refer to the number of persons registered as un-
employed with the National Register’s of the Public Employment Services of each country. The ofﬁ cial ﬁ gure of 
“registered unemployed” is subject to national rules and deﬁ nitions speciﬁ cally linked to each country’s tradition 
and which differ across countries. 
National registers apply in most countries the same three criteria established by the ILO and used by the LFS for 
the measurement of harmonised unemployment. However, some differences appear in the way these are inter-
preted and speciﬁ ed in the different countries:
(1) “Persons without work” – The situation of being without work can be more or less strictly interpreted. In 
some countries persons working one hour in the reference week are strictly excluded from the unemployed, as it 
is deﬁ ned by the ILO criteria. However, in several countries persons having involuntarily short term jobs, short 
working hours, low-paid jobs and temporary jobs, are considered as “without job”, and are under certain condi-
tions registered as unemployed. This is the case in Austria, in Germany and in Finland, for example.
(2) “Currently available for work” – Being available for work can also be more or less strictly interpreted. In 
some countries persons who are ill and thus “not currently” available for a job, are not registered as unemployed. 
However, in the majority of countries they are. In some countries single parents who cannot ﬁ nd a kindergarten 
for their children are not allowed to register as RU, whereas in others yet they can. In contrast to the LFS, some 
countries ask for full time availability to register persons as unemployed.
(3) “Actively seeking work” – The speciﬁ cation of this situation is further qualiﬁ ed in two aspects, the ﬁ rst one 
concerning the type of work looked for and the second one concerning the type of activity implemented to fulﬁ l 

5

an “active” search. In some countries, only those who are looking for a full-time job are allowed to register as 
RU, whereas those looking for a part-time job are excluded. In others, the job-search is deﬁ ned as “active” if the 
person declares to be actively searching a job, whereas in other countries evidence of frequent contacts with the 
PES and reporting of search activities is required. 
The two criteria “currently available for work” and “actively seeking work” are further developed by an additional 
question on the “Obligation to take “a job” offered by the PES”: In some countries, the registered unemployed 
are obliged to take “any” job offered by the PES or otherwise they are considered not to be available and thus may 
be excluded from the register, at least for a certain time. In other countries, this rule is interpreted to be valid only 
for a “suitable” job.
Apart from the three ILO criteria, there is an additional condition imposed by the national registers:
(4) Registration: Only those persons who actively contact the PES and go personally to ask for help through reg-
istration are included in the registers. Further, not all persons willing to register with the PES will be classiﬁ ed as 
unemployed, as they might be included in other categories as happens, for example, with the participants in labour 
market policy measures. PES registers depend on “counting customers”, those persons who contact them for help. 
The number of customers should depend on how the system is perceived by the individuals. If the system offers 
practical or ﬁ nancial help in a generous way, such as unemployment beneﬁ ts, referral to labour market measures, 
help ﬁ nd a new employment, it will probably have more clients than a PES with less attractive offers. 
Registered unemployed ﬁ gures are most relevant for national monitoring since they are submitted to the deﬁ ni-
tions and legal basis adopted in each country to combat unemployment and at the same time refer to the actual 
population requesting effective help.

4 - Restrictions of the registers versus restrictions of the survey

In summary, the restrictions imposed by the registers to count a person as “registered unemployed” are only in 
theory the same restrictions imposed by the LFS deﬁ nition. The different interpretation of these conditions leads 
to different results across countries. In the table below,  seven selected countries have been compared, taking into 
account the different calculation method in each country (monthly average in some countries, quarterly data in 
some others).  Three countries, Germany, Austria and Finland, have higher ﬁ gures of registered unemployed than 
LFS unemployed and  four countries, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Sweden,have lower ﬁ gures of registered 
unemployed than LFS unemployed (Table 1).

Table 1 - Registered Unemployed (RU), Harmonised Unemployed (LFS’U) and ratio RU/LFS’U. 
Seven selected countries - 2003 - (in 1000s)

RU/LFS’U

LFS’U

RU

DE

1.04

3890.5

4060.3

ES

0.76

2125.8

1621.3

FR

0.97

2339.8

2258.9

NL

0.54

312.5

170.0

AT

1.27

182.6

232.4

FI

1.20

234.7

281.3

SE

0.72

258.8

185.8

Sources: Eurostat, Labour Force Survey, Labour Market Policy database

4. 1 - Registers more restrictive than survey

The conditions imposed for registration as unemployed are not limited to those mentioned above (“persons without 
work, currently available for work, actively seeking work, and actively asking for registration”). The regulations 
for registration as unemployed are often linked to the eligibility for unemployment beneﬁ ts and consequently not 
all those persons who fulﬁ l the four previous conditions can or do register with the Public Employment Services 
as unemployed.
Some examples might illustrate this situation:
- Young unemployed people even those actively looking for a job, often do not register with the PES or are ex-
cluded from the ofﬁ cial ﬁ gures of registered unemployed, for different reasons such as: (a) they are ﬁ rst job seek-
ers and due to their lack of previous work, they are not eligible for unemployment beneﬁ ts, (b) they are full-time 
students and are only looking for a part-time job or a job in their summer holidays, (c) they are part-time students 
and thus, are not counted among the registered unemployed, even if they are looking for a job and are available to 
work. This is for example true in Spain. However, the difference between registered unemployment and harmo-
nised unemployment ﬁ gures for younger age groups is substantially more important than for the main working 
age groups, and register ﬁ gures for young unemployed are generally lower than survey ﬁ gures in all countries. 

6

Nevertheless, the survey coverage includes 15 to 74 aged persons. In this respect, the registers are more restrictive 
since often 15 year olds are not included.
- Older people are considered in most countries as having little chances of ﬁ nding a job. 
Consequently, they are eligible to receive unemployment beneﬁ ts, but are not obliged to look for a job nor regis-
tered as “unemployed” anymore. Similarly, pensioners and retirees receiving a pension are not obliged to look for 
a job and therefore not considered registered unemployed in some countries. This is true in France, for example. 
They are not counted as unemployed even when looking for a job. The same applies to beneﬁ ciaries of invalidity 
pensions (if they are not 100% handicapped) and for elderly unemployed receiving unemployment beneﬁ ts. How-
ever, if these groups are looking for a job and comply with the relevant criteria, they are counted as unemployed 
in the survey until they are 74 years old. Registered unemployed as deﬁ ned in the PES registers in most countries 
include only persons in main working ages (between 15/20 and 60/64 year olds depending on countries), but 
no persons beyond that age. In summary, older people for one or another reason are generally not registered as 
unemployed, and therefore it is surprising to ﬁ nd higher ﬁ gures of registered unemployed than LFS’U for the 
age groups 50 through to 64, as it happens in four out of the ﬁ ve countries shown in the detailed analysis (Spain, 
Germany, Finland and Austria). 
- Participants in labour market policy measures such as training, occupational programmes, social employment 
schemes etc. will probably be classiﬁ ed as unemployed in the survey, but usually they are not counted in the reg-
isters as unemployed, as during a full-time measure they are considered as “not immediately available”.
- People looking for part time jobs (<20 hours a week) or temporary jobs, are excluded from the registers in some 
countries, as it is the case in Spain. 
- Receipt of unemployment beneﬁ ts - In some countries such as the United Kingdom and also in Ireland, there 
are no ofﬁ cial ﬁ gures on registered unemployed, and the registers of unemployed persons registered with the Pub-
lic Employment Services include only those persons who receive unemployment beneﬁ ts. On the contrary, the 
ILO criteria for deﬁ nition of unemployment are independent of whether the person is receiving unemployment 
beneﬁ t or not.

4.2 - Survey more restrictive than registers 

While national registers are more restrictive than the survey in the situations mentioned above, the coverage of 
the survey is more restrictive than the registers in some  particular cases such as persons working short time,  
part-time or in “minimal” jobs. These persons are excluded from the harmonised unemployment ﬁ gures because 
they are “technically” employed while in some countries they are counted as registered unemployed, if their work 
is involuntarily short or very low paid (under a certain threshold). For example in Portugal, persons hired for 
domestic tasks, in Germany and Austria persons earning less than 400 € (in Austria 300 €) a month or working 
less than 15 hours a week can register as RU. This group of persons is important in most countries and might be 
very relevant in accounting for the differences between LFS-unemployed and registered unemployment ﬁ gures. 

5 - Groups of people which make the difference

Considering the rules established by both - registers and LFS survey - for the deﬁ nition of one person as “unem-
ployed” it cannot be demonstrated that the registers are always more restrictive, nor that the survey is always more 
restrictive. Consequently, one cannot expect to ﬁ nd systematically lower ﬁ gures of registered unemployed than 
survey unemployed, nor the opposite. This is clear from table 1 above.
The understanding of the discrepancies between RU and LFS’U requires a detailed analysis for each individual 
country, since the groups that are included in the RU and excluded from the survey, and those that are excluded 
from the RU and included in the survey, differ across countries and have a different weight in the population of 
each country. From the analysis of the rules and deﬁ nitions applied in the registers of the countries mentioned 
above, it has been observed that three groups of population are subject to a special treatment by the registers 
of some countries. These three groups are (a) young people, and ﬁ rst job seekers, (b) persons in “marginal” or 
“minimal” jobs and (c) older people. The special treatment given to these groups in the registers explains its un-
der-representation (young people) or its over-representation (persons in marginal jobs) in certain countries. 
In addition to this, there is a fourth particular group (d) of “Unemployment Beneﬁ t Recipients” which explains 
the differences between registered unemployed and harmonised unemployed, but this happens only in two coun-
tries, Ireland and the United Kingdom (see §3.1), since only those persons receiving beneﬁ ts are included in 
the “Live Register” which is the closest to the PES register in other countries. In other countries, the opposite can 

7

be observed: there are some groups of persons receiving beneﬁ ts which are not registered as unemployed with 
the PES, e.g. older unemployed who agree to take early retirement keeping their right to unemployment beneﬁ ts 
while having a lower pension in Germany, (§ 428 Social Code III). The same approach to the older unemployed 
is found in France – it seems reasonable to think that other countries might have similar regulations for aged 
persons. Also participants in LMP measures are not registered as unemployed but may receive beneﬁ ts.
It is worth considering how the group of “minimal job workers” (persons working a small number of hours) is 
treated differently in the registers of different countries: As mentioned before, Austria or Germany count 
them  as  unemployed,  (see  §2.1)  whereas  in  Spain  these  persons  are  counted  as  “employed”,  and  in  Sweden 
they are counted as “part-time employed”. This qualiﬁ cation in Sweden, gives those persons the right to receive 
part-time unemployment beneﬁ ts. It is worth mentioning that in Sweden part-time employed receiving part-time 
unemployment beneﬁ ts constitute a group nearly as important as the group of those who receive full-time unem-
ployment beneﬁ ts. In other countries, the numbers of persons who receive part time unemployment beneﬁ ts are 
practically negligible.

Table 2 - LMP data on beneﬁ ciaries of Unemployment Beneﬁ ts - 2003 (in 1000s)

8.1

8.2

8.3

Total

DE

4068.3

279.9

0.3

4348.5

ES

1204.3

2.1

0.0

FR

2597.4

4.8

0.0

1206.4

2602.2

NL

748.0

0.0

0.0

748.0

AT

218.4

1.6

0.0

219.9

FI

260.6

0.7

31.2

292.4

SE

188.6

0.0

144.1

332.7

Legend Table 2: Data in this table present 3 subcategories in the LMP database including the following data:

8.1 - Persons receiving Unemployment beneﬁ ts and Unemployment assistance.

8.2 - Persons receiving partial unemployment beneﬁ ts (due to climatic conditions etc.)

8.3 - Persons receiving part-time unemployment beneﬁ ts (due to having part-time job and looking for full-time job)

Source: Eurostat, Labour Market Policy database

8.1 - LMP Sub-category that includes persons receiving unemployment beneﬁ ts and unemployment assistance. 

In DK it includes also persons in sub-categories 8.2 and 8.3
8.2 - This category includes partial unemployment beneﬁ ts (due to climatic conditions etc.)
8.3 - This category includes part-time unemployment beneﬁ ts (due to having part-time job and looking for full-
time job)

Finally, it is clear that some countries can produce very similar ﬁ gures of registered unemployed and harmonised 
unemployed (RU and LFS’U). For example in France, a very rich set of data on each registered person is avail-
able and the structure of the registers allows the retrieval of ﬁ les according to different criteria. Thanks to this 
ﬂ exibility the register can provide a ﬁ gure of “registered unemployed” matching exactly the ﬁ gure of harmonised 
unemployed when necessary.

8

Part II – Detailed Country Comparison

Achieving an exact picture of the groups included in or excluded from the register can only be part of a bigger 
study. What can be done using the data that is easily accessible is to look at the age groups of registered persons by 
labour status, some gender differences and other factors of the sub-groups that are available both in the national 
registers and in the LFS.
The second part of this study shows a detailed comparison of LFS and register data on unemployment in ﬁ ve coun-
tries, Finland, Austria, Germany, Spain and Sweden. The structure used for the detailed analysis is the following:

II 1. Structure used in the detailed country comparison

(a) Regulations on registered unemployment compared  to the LFS harmonised regulations on  
      unemployment

All systems have certain deﬁ nitions. While the ILO-deﬁ nition of unemployment adopted by the LFS is the same 
internationally,  each  country  has  its  own  national  system  and  regulations,  for  unemployment  registration.  By 
comparing the deﬁ nitions and some other special regulations between the LFS and registered unemployment, a 
number of differences in the ﬁ gures can already be explained.

(b) Unemployment by age, register data vs. LFS-unemployed

The  next  step  is  to  look  at  the  differences  between  the  LFS-unemployed  data  and  the  registered  unemployed 
data, not only for the totals, but also within the age-groups (5 years in one group) to ﬁ nd out whether or not both 
sources always show some discrepancies e.g. at the beginning or at the end of the working life.
In a further study, this should also be examined according to gender, as there may be speciﬁ c differences between 
men and women, e.g. usually more women than men have breaks in their employment for childcare reasons.

(c) Registration with the public employment service, PES vs. LFS data on registration

Some further insight can be gained by including information on registration. The most important statistical in-
formation of the PES is the registered unemployed, which is a subgroup of the total registered jobseekers. Total 
registered jobseekers usually include other groups like employed jobseekers, active labour market measure par-
ticipants and other groups not fulﬁ lling the national deﬁ nitions of registered unemployed.
A table shows for each country which relevant sub-groups of registered jobseekers can be identiﬁ ed in the respec-
tive PES register. Sometimes one group can be matched by deﬁ nition exactly to one corresponding employment 
status in the LFS, sometimes one group of the register can include different employment status according to the 
LFS. This allocation is done in the table. One example: In Germany registered unemployed are allowed to be 
marginally employed, i.e. their LFS employment status can be either unemployed or employed.
The LFS also includes questions on PES registration. All participants irrespective of their labour status are asked 
if they are registered with the PES. Groups identiﬁ ed in the LFS are:

•     LFS-RU4 => LFS employment-status = unemployed and registered with the PES

  •     LFS-RE  => LFS employment-status = employed and registered with the PES
  •     LFS–RI  => LFS employment-status = inactive and registered with the PES

This part of the analysis compares the different labour status of the persons who declare themselves to be regis-
tered with the PES in the LFS and those actually registered with the PES. In the graph the registered unemployed 
are set as 100% (=1), in relation to all other groups shown.

(d) LFS-unemployed claiming not to be registered (only LFS-data)

The last group observed is the LFS unemployed claiming not to be registered, i.e. the group fulﬁ lling the LFS-
criteria on unemployment without being registered. In this study, these data are used to explain the differences 
between registered unemployed and LFS-unemployed in groups with big differences, i.e. usually the young age 
group. The picture expected is that in the main working age most LFS-unemployed claim to be registered, whereas 
among the young age groups most of the population is still in the education system. Young people in the education 
system usually only look for a job in the holidays. In this case, they can be classiﬁ ed as unemployed in the LFS, 
but usually not as registered unemployed. Therefore the share of young unemployed not being registered with the 
PES is relatively high (see graphs “country-code-03”).

4  The LFS-RU ﬁ gures are smaller than the LFS-U ﬁ gures, as they include only those LFS-U who claim to be registered with the public employment service.

9

 
 
 
 
Table 3 - Numbers of Registered unemployed and LFS Unemployed by age groups - 2003

Sweden

Spain

Germany 1)

Finland

Austria 2)

Age
15-19
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
50-54
55-59
60-64
Total
LFS-U/RU
Total (25-50)
LFS-U/RU

RU
8.133
34.304
34.629
29.922
28.276
22.065
17.734
15.817
16.011
16.132
223.023
1,2
132.626
1,2

RU
77.307
185.719
254.896
234.665
210.873
177.918
151.117
136.977
148.615
81.809

LFS-U
LFS-U
105.489
29.930
389.678
39.319
360.100
34.160
444.538
29.102
523.531
26.527
519.722
24.753
474.201
19.089
469.254
17.342
429.908
21.271
174.082
17.347
258.841 1.659.894 2.096.902 2.082.861 4.496.689 3.890.502

RU_new LFS-U
145.429
364.780
415.589
324.548
267.845
209.334
158.268
113.980
87.258
38.725

RU
79.404
442.892
450.725
538.964
640.444
628.335
568.676
567.682
458.412
121.155

83.403
219.003
336.360
313.528
280.536
231.450
190.637
168.772
178.469
94.744

1,3

1,0

0,9

133.631 1.029.468 1.352.511 1.375.583 2.827.144 2.322.092

1,3

1,0

0,8

+15,6

in percent

-13,8

-20,3

+0,7

1) Germany: Data April 2003

2) Austria: Data 1st quarter 2003

II 2. Finland

LFS-U
31.024
38.584
26.726
20.887
21.601
22.368
23.282
23.714
23.099
3.412
234.698

114.865

RU
8.679
27.480
27.575
26.784
31.695
32.316
33.906
36.492
50.994
12.737
288.658
0,81
152.276
0,75

LFS-U
13.880
23.966
23.853
21.723
19.232
23.088
19.576
19.169
15.661
2.480
182.628

107.472

RU
10.548
33.209
31.907
38.880
42.411
38.105
31.060
30.039
23.149
4.388
283.696
0,6
182.363
0,6

+23,0

+55,3

(a) Regulations of registered unemployment compared to the LFS harmonised regulations on   
     unemployment

To register as unemployed in Finland, a person has to be aged 17-64, be without work and willing to work. The 
unemployed have to be available to start full-time employment or to have found work they are about to start. Ac-
tive search is also required.
Comparing the criteria used by the ILO deﬁ nition, the age-groups considered comprise persons between 15 
and 74. In the detailed deﬁ nition of the variables qualifying a person as unemployed “availability” is more 
strict in the unemployment register, as availability for full-time employment is required, while in the LFS avail-
ability for part-time would be sufﬁ cient. The criteria “without work” in the LSF means no work at all - even one 
hour in the week changes the status from unemployed to employed. The employment status in the register in 
Finland changes to “employed” if a person regularly has three or more working hours in the week or works ir-
regularly more than four hours a week and thus is slightly less strict than the ILO deﬁ nition. For “active search” 
the PES requires one speciﬁ c activity, a jobseeker has to turn up at the employment ofﬁ ce. In the LFS, one 
out of several activities is sufﬁ cient. In addition to this more generous deﬁ nition, the LFS is stricter regarding 
the length of the search, the unemployed must show job search activities in the last four weeks, which is not 
necessarily required of an unemployed person in the PES (Sitho 2003, p. 162), where the unemployed have to 
turn up every 3-4 months.

(b) Unemployment by age, register data vs. LFS-unemployed

In Finland, the registered unemployed for 2003 are about 23 % higher than the LFS-unemployed (table 1). How-
ever, looking at the age groups, there is a different picture: younger age-groups 15-19 and 20-24 show lower 
ﬁ gures of registered unemployed than LFS-unemployed compared to registered unemployed. 
The fact that register groups in Finland start at 17 instead of 15 (as for the ILO-deﬁ nition), only offers a partial 
explanation. If the LFS-unemployed in the youngest age group are excluded from the ﬁ gures and the comparison 
starts with age groups 17-19 as in the Finnish register, the LFS-unemployed are still more than 2.5 times higher 
than the registration ﬁ gures. For the age-group of 25-29 the ﬁ gures equal, and from 30-34 to 55-59 the registered 
unemployed are higher than the LFS-unemployed ﬁ gures with an increasing difference. 

10

For the older unemployed (not including the unemployed pensioners of 60-64 years5), the registered unemployed 
are nearly four times as high as the LFS-unemployed. Presumably, a high share of the registered unemployed in 
this age group do not match the LFS-criteria of unemployment of active search anymore.

Unemployment by age, 2003

LFS-U

RU

Graph FI01

60.000

50.000

40.000

30.000

20.000

10.000

0

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

(c) Registration with the public employment service, PES vs. LFS data on registration

The jobseeker register in Finland includes detailed information about labour status. Several different groups can 
be identiﬁ ed: (1) unemployed, (2) laid off, (3) on reduced working time, (4) in the conventional labour market, 
(5) in subsidised employment, (6) inactive persons not in the labour force and (7) unemployed pensioners. These 
groups are shown in graph FI 02a below in reverse order.

Graph FI02a

80.000

70.000

60.000

50.000

40.000

30.000

20.000

10.000

0

Total Jobseekers by labour status, Finland 2003

Unemployed pensioners

Persons not in labour force

In subsidised employment

In the conventional labour market

On reduced working time

Laid off

Unemployed

15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64

Due to the detailed information available, all groups of the PES register can be clearly assigned to the LFS cat-
egories of unemployed, employed and inactive.

5  Pensioners’ regulation: According to the law the “unemployed pensioners” have to register at the employment ofﬁ ce until statutory age of old age pension. 
According to studies only a very tiny part of this group continues their jobseeking. As they can be identiﬁ ed in the statistics they’re in this study classiﬁ es 
as inactive jobseekers.

11

Groups identiﬁ ed in the PES register
Registered unemployed + Laid off (RU)

Can be in the LFS…
LFS - registered-unemployed + LFS-employed < 4 hours a 
week (LFS-R-U, LFS-R-E)

On reduced working time (RJ-E)

LFS - registered-employed (LFS-R-E)

In the conventional labour market (RJ-E)

LFS - registered-employed (LFS-R-E)

In subsidized employment (RJ-E)

LFS - registered-employed (LFS-R-E)

Persons not in the labour force (RJ-I)

LFS - registered-inactive (LFS-R-I)

Unemployed pensioners (RJ-I)

LFS - registered-inactive (LFS-R-I)

Training measure participants6

LFS - registered-employed or inactive (LFS-R-E, LFS-R-I)

Graph FI 02b

PES registration by status in relation to RU (RU = 1)

5,5

5,0

4,5

4,0

3,5

3,0

2,5

2,0

1,5

1,0

0,5

0,0

PES-RJ-I

PES-RJ-E
PES-RU
LFS-R-I

LFS-R-E
LFS-R-U

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

Total

15-19

20-59

60-64

(Legend: The three top labels refer to PES columns; the three lower labels refer to LFS columns)

As is shown in graph FI02b above, the registered unemployed in Finland (set as 100%, i.e. 1.0) are not the only 
group of persons registered as the total registration ﬁ gures, including employed and inactive registered, are about 
1.8 times as high. The ﬁ gures of the total jobseekers registered with the PES are about 45 % higher compared to 
the total LFS-ﬁ gures of persons claiming to be registered. The difference results from the PES’ registered unem-
ployed (+ 60 %) and registered employed (+ 68 %) being higher than the LFS ﬁ gures. The registered inactive in 
both systems only vary slightly, the PES ﬁ gures about 4 % higher than the LFS ﬁ gures (see graph, FI 03). For the 
main working ages the difference between the LFS and PES registration ﬁ gures is smaller than for the total, but 
still amounts to 32 %. This smaller difference results from the registered inactive; in this age-group, the registered 
inactive in the PES are smaller than in the LFS.

The older age-group (60-64) includes as inactive the unemployed pensioners who have to register at the employ-
ment service, though most of this group is outside the labour force. Apparently unemployed pensioners do not 
claim to be registered in the LFS. If this group is excluded from the comparison, the registration ﬁ gures of the 
LFS and PES match for this age-group, though the subgroups again show big differences: In the PES register,  
84 % of the registered jobseekers (excluding the unemployed pensioners) are unemployed. On the contrary 70 % 
of the LFS-registered are inactive. The unemployment ﬁ gures of the PES in the age-groups 60-64 are nearly four 
times the size of those in the LFS. This difference is much bigger than for other age groups and could suggest that 
the registered unemployed in that age-groups often do not fulﬁ l all the unemployment criteria of the ILO any-
more, as it is very difﬁ cult to ﬁ nd a new employment in the years preceding pensionable age, so that they might 
have given up and are not searching actively anymore.

6  Training measure participants (LMP category 2) can be identiﬁ ed and, depending on the kind of the measure they are classiﬁ ed as employed (cat. 2.2 and 

2.4) or as inactive. Many of the participants are registered as jobseekers during participation. In this study measure participants are not included.

12

(d) LFS-unemployed claiming not to be registered (only LFS-data)

In  Finland,  about  23  %  of  the  LFS-unemployed  claim  not  to  be  registered  with  the  PES  (women  26  %,  men 
21 %). The share of LFS-unemployed who claim not to be registered to the LFS-unemployed is highest for the 
young age-groups (15-19: 69 %) and decreases up to the age-group (35-39: 8 %). For the following age-groups, 
there is a further but slower rate of decrease until the age group 55-59 (2 %), the share for males rising again for 
the age-group of 60-64 (10 %). The biggest difference between men (38 %) and women (48 %) is to be found in 
the 20-24 year-old age group with 10 percentage points.

Share of LFS-U-NR / LFS-U

Female

Male

Graph FI03

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Total

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

II 3. Austria

(a) Regulations of registered unemployment compared to the LFS harmonised regulations on   
     unemployment

The conditions necessary to register as unemployed in Austria are to be without work, to apply to the PES and 
to be available for placement services. The registered unemployed should be immediately available to take up 
employment, be able and willing to work. They are allowed to earn a minimal income (in 2003: 309.38 Euro). Job 
search activities are also required.
For a comparison with LFS-unemployed this means a wider deﬁ nition concerning “Without work”, as the regis-
tered unemployed are allowed to have a marginal employment while being registered as unemployed. However the 
registered unemployed have to be available immediately, not within two weeks as in the LFS. Job search activities 
are required in both systems, but the particular activity of requesting a job from the PES is not needed for the LFS, 
so here the demand is different (and given the more detailed requirements), stricter for the registered unemployed. 
At least one particular activity has to be done by the registered unemployed to qualify as registered unemployed 
(i.e. to go to the PES) while for the LFS-unemployed, any activity from a list of variables is sufﬁ cient, e.g. reading 
the job advertisements in the newspaper. It is also possible for the PES to check the availability of their clients, 
which is not the case for the LFS-unemployed. Due to these different approaches, which also accur in other coun-
tries, the problem of how to compare job search activities of registered unemployed and LFS-unemployed is also 
difﬁ cult in Austria.
Women aged 56.5 and men aged 61.5 who receive beneﬁ ts to facilitate transition into retirement (pension ad-
vances, LMP database: intervention AT-4), i.e. their application is checked by the pension administration, are 
excluded from the unemployment register.

(b) Unemployment by age, register data vs. LFS-unemployed-U

For the ﬁ rst quarter of 2003 in Austria the total ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed are about 55,3 % higher than 
for the LFS-unemployed (see table 1), the age groups at the beginning and the end of the working life being an 
exception. Both for the 15-19 and the 60-64 age groups, the LFS-unemployed ﬁ gures are higher than the regis-
tered unemployed. 

13

Even within the main working age, the shares of registered unemployed to LFS-unemployed change. While the 
ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed rise from the age-group 25-29 to the age group 35-39, the ﬁ gures for the 
LFS-unemployed decrease (see graph AT01). The biggest difference between the registered unemployed and the 
LFS-unemployed is found in the age group 35 to 39 years, the ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed being more 
than twice as high as for the LFS-unemployed.

Unemployment by age, 1st quarter 2003

LFS-U

RU

Graph AT01

45.000

40.000

35.000

30.000

25.000

20.000

15.000

10.000

5.000

0

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

No explanation for the lower ﬁ gures of LFS-unemployed as compared with those of registered unemployed in the 
age groups in the middle of the working life can be found in the deﬁ nitions and regulations of both systems. To 
get a better picture, the gender speciﬁ c shares of registered unemployed and LFS-unemployed are included in the 
Austrian comparison (see graph AT02a). 

Concerning the differences between men and women, in most age-groups (20-24 – 50-54) the difference between 
registered unemployed and LFS-unemployed ﬁ gures is bigger for women than for men, i.e. women have a higher 
share of registered unemployed compared to LFS-unemployed than men. This relation changes in the older age-
groups of 55-59 and 60-64, men having a higher share of registered unemployed compared to LFS-unemployed. 
The big difference between LFS-unemployed and registered unemployed in the age-group 35-39 years exists for 
men and women, though it is even higher for men, with ﬁ gures of registered unemployed being about 2.5 times 
as high as the LFS-unemployed.

Share of registered unemployed / LFS-Unemployed

Women

Men

Graph AT02a

300%

250%

200%

150%

100%

50%

0%

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

14

(c) Registration with the public employment service, PES vs. LFS data on registration

As not all LFS-unemployed are registered with the PES whilst other persons not LFS-unemployed (inactive and 
employed) are registered, we also compare those in the LFS who claim to be registered with the actual jobseeker 
register. Besides the registered unemployed, the Austrian registered jobseekers include apprenticeship seekers, the 
marginally employed and other not unemployed jobseekers. These groups can be identiﬁ ed in the register data.

Register groups

Can be in the LFS…

Registered unemployed (without marginal employment) (RU)

LFS-R-U

Registered unemployed with marginal employment = RU-E

LFS-R-E

Training measure participants (Cat.2) = RJ-I7

LFS-R-I

Not unemployed jobseekers (RJ)

Apprenticeship seekers (AS)

LFS-R (LFS-R-U, LFS-R-E, LFS-R-I)

LFS-R (usually LFS-R-I, LFS-R-U)

Graph AT02 – PES-registered by status against LFS persons by status declaring to be registered

PES registration by status in relation to RU (RU = 1)

2,0

1,5

1,0

0,5

0,0

PES-RU-E
PES-AS

PES-RJ
PES-RU (not RU-E)
LFS-R-I
LFS-R-E
LFS-R-U

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

Total

15-19

20-59

60-64

(Legend: The four top labels refer to PES columns; the three lower labels refer to LFS columns)

In Austria, the inclusion of the registration ﬁ gures does not explain the differences between LFS-unemployed and 
registered unemployed. The total ﬁ gure of the LFS-registered is 30 % smaller than the registered jobseeker ﬁ gure 
(see graph AT02). Registered jobseekers in Austria include the registered unemployed (88 %), employed (6 %) and 
other not-unemployed registered (5 %), with apprenticeship seekers (AS in the graph) amounting to 1 % (24 % in 
the age group 15-19 years). The LFS-registered being smaller than the registered jobseekers include 76% unem-
ployed, 22 % inactive and only 2% employed. About 16,700 registered unemployed with marginal employment 
are counted in the PES register compared to only about 4,500 in the LFS. Part of this difference may be explained 
by the LFS methodology which only includes one reference week. Some of the marginally employed may not 
work every week, but this cannot explain a difference of this size, the PES ﬁ gures being four times as high as the 
LFS-ﬁ gures.

The registered unemployed (excluding those with marginal employment) amount to 276,000 (ﬁ rst quarter 2003), 
about 67% higher than the LFS-unemployed who claim to be registered. In the younger age group (15-19) the 
difference between the registered unemployed and LFS-unemployed can be reduced by including only the regis-
tered in both systems. In that case, the ﬁ gures show about 10,400 registered unemployed (excluding marginally 
employed) and 11,500 LFS-registered unemployed.

7  Training participants can be identiﬁ ed in Austria, but are not quantiﬁ ed in this study. Training  measure participants are registered as training participants 

(not unemployed) during participation.

15

However, for the main working age group (20-59), the registration ﬁ gures of the PES are 46 % higher than the 
LFS registration ﬁ gures. It is interesting to note that about one quarter of the LFS registered claims not to be 
unemployed, while this is only true for about 10 % of the PES registered jobseeker totals. In the LFS, 42,700 of 
those claiming to be registered are inactive, only 4,300 are employed. The PES ﬁ gures however, include 16,000 
marginally employed and only 13.000 other not-unemployed jobseekers. The differences in the registration ﬁ g-
ures of LFS and PES for the main working age are not easy to understand.

In the older age-group (60-64), the difference between the registration ﬁ gures for the LFS and PES unemployed 
is only 10 %. In this age-group, nearly half of the LFS-registered are inactive, the other half is unemployed. In the 
PES, 85 % are unemployed, i.e. a high share of the 60-64 year-old registered unemployed do not fulﬁ l the ILO 
(LFS) unemployment criteria. This cannot be explained by the early retirement regulations, as those participants 
are excluded from the register.

(d) LFS-unemployed claiming not to be registered (only LFS-data)

If only the LFS data are taken into account, there is a strong gender effect regarding the registration of LFS-unem-
ployed. For the total it can be observed that 10 % of unemployed men and 15 % of unemployed women claim not to 
be registered with the public employment ofﬁ ce (Graph AT03). The shares for both men and women change signiﬁ -
cantly from age group to age group, in most cases the shares for women being higher than those for men; up to about 
15 percentage points for the age group of the 40-44 year-old (10 % male, 25 % female). The diffrerences between 
age-groups do not show a clear development, which is different from the other countries observed. One reason may 
be the group of participants in the LFS, on which the totals are based, are too small for this calculation.

Share of LFS-U-NR / LFS-U

Female

Male

Graph AT03

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

Total

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

(Legend: LFS Unemployed Not Registered / LFS Unemployed)

II 4. Germany

(a) Regulations of registered unemployment compared to the LFS harmonised regulations on   
     unemployment8

To register as unemployed with the German public employment service (PES) a person has to be temporarily 
without work, actively searching a new employment, be immediately available to start a new job and be avail-
able for placement activities offered by the PES. At a ﬁ rst glance the three criteria of being without work, active 
search and availability are close to the ILO-deﬁ nition, but a closer look at the deﬁ nition of the variables shows 
important differences:
“Without work” in the LFS means no work at all in the reference week, as one hour would already be counted as 
employment. In contrast, for the registered unemployed, a marginal part-time employment not subject to social 
security contributions is allowed without changing the status of a registered unemployed to a registered jobseeker. 

8  Both deﬁ nitions and data refer to the legal regulations in 2003. Regulations have changed in 2005 resulting in a strong increase of ﬁ gures of registered 

unemployed in January 2005.

16

“Availability” is more strict in the PES deﬁ nition, the registered unemployed are expected to be available imme-
diately, while the LFS asks for availability within two weeks. Unemployed according to both deﬁ nitions have to 
“search actively” to end the unemployment spell. In this case, it is the measurement procedures that might result 
in a difference. The unemployment requirement of the PES encompasses availability for employment (e.g. place-
ment offers by the PES) and efforts on the part of the unemployed individual to become employed. At the request 
of  the  Employment  Ofﬁ ce,  the  unemployed  must  show  proof  of  the  efforts  made  in  this  regard. Thus  “active 
search” register ﬁ gures depend on activities both of the registered unemployed and of the PES. The LFS ﬁ gure 
relies (for this variable) only on the self-assessment of the persons participating in the survey. This difference in 
the variable “active search” exists in all the countries included in the comparison. In the case of proxy interviews 
(2002 about 30 %) the LFS ﬁ gures also depend to a certain extent on the ability of the person asked and his or her 
knowledge of the situation of the person he/she is questioned about.

b) Unemployment by age, register data vs. LFS-unemployed

In Germany, the ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed in April 2003 are 15,6 % higher than the ﬁ gures of the LFS 
(see table 1). The age groups at the beginning (15-19 years) and the end of the working life (60-64 years) are an 
exception: for these age groups, the LFS-unemployment ﬁ gures are higher than the ﬁ gures of the registered un-
employed (see graph DE01). For information on the younger age groups see below (II.7)

Unemployment by age, April 2003

LFS-U

RU

Graph DE01

700.000

600.000

500.000

400.000

300.000

200.000

100.000

0

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

Though the ﬁ gures for the registered unemployed in Germany are higher than the LFS ﬁ gures, the difference de-
creased from the peak in 2001 of about 800,000 to about 450,000 in 2003. A reason for this phenomenon might 
be that due to the recent reforms the registered unemployed were checked more often, if they still fulﬁ l the condi-
tions for unemployment registration. (Hartmann/Riede 2005) This ﬁ gure for the registered unemployed in 2003 
(still about 16 % higher than LFS-unemployment), is seen in the age groups from 25-29 to 50-54 with only small 
variations. It is signiﬁ cantly smaller among the younger (20-24) and the older age-groups (55-54). The difference 
between LFS-unemployed and registered unemployed is higher for women (18%) than for men (13%). The biggest 
difference between men and women is to be found in the older working age of 60-64. In this age group, the ﬁ gures 
for the LFS-unemployed are higher than the ﬁ gures for the registered unemployed (women + 17 %, men + 59 %). 
The difference between men and women in this group may result from the different ages of retirement between 
men and women and special regulations for the older unemployed (see graph DE02 below).

17

(c) Registration with the public employment service, register data vs. LFS data on registration
In the LFS, all participants are asked if they are registered with the public employment service, irrespective of 
claiming to be unemployed, employed or inactive. In the PES register, the unemployed have to fulﬁ l all the con-
ditions as mentioned above, while registered jobseekers also include for example those who do not fulﬁ l all the 
conditions required. “Not unemployed registered jobseekers” include “employed at risk of losing their job” or 
just wanting to change as well as participants in labour market measures and jobseeking people in education or 
on parental leave or with care duties.

Register groups

Registered unemployed (RU)

Measure participants (cat. 2) (RJ)9

Registered unemployed with marginal employment receiving 
beneﬁ ts - (RU-E)

Can be in the LFS…

LFS-R, normally LFS-R-U

LFS-R-I

LFS-R-E

Other registered jobseekers (RJ)

LFS-R (LFS-R-U, LFS-R-E, LFS-R-I)

Graph DE02

3,0

2,5

2,0

1,5

1,0

0,5

0,0

PES registration by status in relation to RU (RU = 1)

PES-RJ
PES-RU-E

PES-RU

LFS-R-I
LFS-R-E
LFS-R-U

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

Total

15-19

20-59

60-64

(Legend: The three top labels refer to PES columns; the three lower labels refer to LFS columns)

In Germany, the total register ﬁ gures are about 7 % higher compared to those in the LFS claiming to be registered. 
The difference results mostly from the neither-unemployed nor-employed registered jobseekers – a group difﬁ cult 
to identify. The relation between PES- and LFS-registration is different for the younger and the older age groups, 
reﬂ ecting their special situations. In the younger age group, there are only a few registered unemployed beneﬁ t 
recipients with marginal employment, instead the group of the registered jobseekers who are not unemployed has 
a higher share than in other age groups. In the 60-64 year old group, the LFS-unemployed are about 90 % higher 
than the registered unemployed ﬁ gures. This may be due to early retirement regulations for the unemployed, with 
these participants in the PES not registered as unemployed.

In the ofﬁ cial PES statistics, the registered unemployed with marginal employment are not identiﬁ ed, i.e. regis-
tered unemployed with marginal employment are included in the total ﬁ gure of the registered unemployed. This 
refers to the national deﬁ nition of the registered unemployed, the variable “without work” referring to socially 
insured employment of at least 15 working hours a week. Though the unemployment statistics do not subdivide 
the  registered  unemployed  according  to  marginal  employment,  it  is  possible  to  quantify  the  registered  unem-
ployed beneﬁ t recipients with marginal employment (see graph DE02, RU-E). In Spring 2003 about 13 % of the 
registered unemployed are beneﬁ t recipients having some marginal employment. Subtracting this group from the 

9  Measure participants of training measures are not registered as unemployed during their participation. They can be identiﬁ ed, but are not quantﬁ ed in 

this study.

18

registered unemployed causes the ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed to be only slightly higher than the LFS-
unemployed claiming to be registered and nearly equals the total ﬁ gures of the LFS-unemployed. 

The group at the end of the working life: For the older unemployed, the registered unemployment ﬁ gures are only 
about 60 % of the unemployment ﬁ gures in the LFS. In the register, there is a regulation allowing the older unem-
ployed not to be available for any new employment without losing their entitlement, if they agree to retire as soon 
as they are entitled to receive pension.10 Only a small part of these unemployed stay in the jobseeker register.11  
Though most of this group is excluded from the register, it can be assumed that in the LFS a part of this group 
claims to be registered, as they still are in contact with the PES and receive beneﬁ ts – some may not know how ex-
actly their status should be deﬁ ned. To a certain extent, this could explain why the LFS ﬁ gures of registered unem-
ployed and registered inactive are bigger than the register ﬁ gures. In April 2003, 370,988 persons received beneﬁ ts 
according to § 428 social code III. Detailed information about this group can only be gained by empirical studies.

(d) LFS-unemployed claiming not to be registered, only LFS-data

In Germany, a small minority of LFS-unemployed claims not to be registered with the public employment service. 
This means a high proportion of the PES registered who have no employment but search actively. The group with 
the highest share of LFS-unemployed not being registered is that of the < 20 year old (women 15 %, men 10 %), 
which can be explained by the status “between school, further education and working life“(as above). Further-
more, full time students and pupils can be unemployed in the LFS, while the lack of availability does not allow 
for this in the PES register. Full-time students are assumed to be studying full-time and thus not be available for 
a socially insured employment of at least 15 hours a week. Still, it is interesting that for nearly all age groups the 
proportion of unemployed women claiming not to be registered is bigger than the comparable proportion of un-
employed men, especially for the 35-39 year age group belonging to the main working age (see graph DE03).

Share of LFS-U-NR / LFS-U

Female

Male

Graph DE03

18%

16%

14%

12%

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0%

Total

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

(e) The biggest groups resulting in differences between the LFS- and PES-ﬁ gures in Germany

Marginal employment
As registered unemployed are allowed to have a marginal employment while being registered, this opportunity is 
taken up by a signiﬁ cant number. Up to now only those who are also beneﬁ t recipients can be identiﬁ ed, i.e. the 
total group of marginally-employed registered unemployed is bigger than measured in this study. In the LFS, this 
group by deﬁ nition will be counted as employed and registered.

LFS-unemployed excluded from the register
People actually inactive or not available for a socially insured employment are excluded from the register, e.g. 
the unemployed beneﬁ tting from early retirement regulations, training measure participants, the sick, full-time 
students. Registered unemployed not eligible for beneﬁ ts have to renew their registration every three months; 

10  Social Code III, § 428.
11  The LFS contains a variable “not registered, but receiving beneﬁ ts”, but there are no ﬁ gures for Germany, though the majority of the “§ 428-unemployed” 

should be in this category.

19

otherwise they are excluded from the register. In these cases it is not only the different deﬁ nitions of the LFS 
compared to the national regulations that are under discussion but also the difﬁ culties for persons answering the 
questionnaire, as their own status may not always be clear to themselves.

II 5. Spain12

(a) Regulations of registered unemployment compared to the LFS harmonised regulations on   
     unemployment

To register as unemployed in Spain, a jobseeker has to be without work, be actively seeking and be available for a 
job. Two other groups of jobseekers are counted in the register: 1. inactive jobseekers who are not working at all 
and 2. employed jobseekers who have found a job, but stay registered to ﬁ nd a better one.
Groups excluded from the registered unemployed according to the Ministerial decree of 11 March 1985 are:

•  
•  
• 
•  
•  
•  

•  
•  

•  

•  

•  

employed looking for a second job or want to work more hours a week
employed looking for a different job
employed temporarily laid off
employed with temporary reduced working hours
unemployment beneﬁ t recipients who participate in labour market measures
pensioners, i.e. pension beneﬁ t recipients who are retired and aged over 65 regardless if they are look-
ing for a job or not
jobseekers looking for a part-time job 
young people under 25 years in vocational training in ofﬁ cial institutions (not only university stu-
dents) or people older than 25 years looking for their ﬁ rst job
young people in vocational training receiving more than 20 hours of training a week, are receiving 
maintenance allowance and looking for their ﬁ rst job
persons not immediately available to work such as:  those on sick leave, the severely disabled, those 
serving in the military or in the civil service, persons who register with the PES as a condition for 
participating in a selection process for a job, persons looking for a job abroad, persons looking for 
work at home
recipients of unemployment beneﬁ ts for agricultural workers, jobseekers registered with the PES who 
are receiving beneﬁ ts according to LAW 2298/1984 or are no longer eligible for beneﬁ ts, although it 
is less than one year since they started receiving beneﬁ ts.

Several of the groups excluded from the unemployment register match with the LFS deﬁ nition, i.e. all those who 
already have some work would be classiﬁ ed as employed in the LFS, those not available in the LFS usually belong 
to the inactive group.
Nonetheless, there are some exclusion regulations in the Spanish register that do not accord with the criteria of the 
LFS (i.e.no work, active search and availability). In Spain, all those older than 25 years who are looking for their 
ﬁ rst employment are excluded, as are also excluded those looking for part-time jobs or for work at home. These 
groups will presumably fulﬁ ll all the LFS conditions of unemployment. Another group that may account for dif-
ferences is that of persons in vocational training and perhaps also labour market measure participants, if they are 
actively searching for employment. An additional group consists of those who have exceeded their eligibility for 
beneﬁ ts and thus are excluded from the unemployment register – they may still fulﬁ ll the criteria of the LFS.

The Spanish register excludes some groups which qualify as unemployed, according to the LFS. However, ac-
cording to the PES no groups in Spain which do not fulﬁ ll the LFS criteria are included in the register.

b) Unemployment by age, register data vs. LFS-unemployed

In Spain, the 2003 ﬁ gures for the registered unemployed are 20,3 % smaller than the ﬁ gures of the LFS unem-

12  When this article was nearly ﬁ nished the registration data from Spain were revised. The same applies not only to the data, but also to the regulations 
on who is counted as unemployed. To ﬁ nd out exactly what are the reasons resulting in changes in the data can only be part of further studies. As far as 
information is already available on the new data and regulations it is included in an extra box. All other information on Spain refers to the old data and 
regulations.

20

ployed (see table 1).13 The LFS-unemployment ﬁ gures are higher than the registered unemployed for age groups 
15-19 to 45-49, the biggest differences can be examined for the younger ages 15-19 to 25-29 (+ 80 %). This can 
be explained by the special regulations for young people as mentioned above.

The difference between the LFS-unemployed and registered unemployed decreases with the older age groups. 
In the 50/54 age-group the relation changes, the registered unemployed ﬁ gures are higher compared to the LFS-
unemployed. The same applies to the 55-59 and 60-64 unemployed age groups.

Unemployment by age, 2003

LFS-U

RU

Graph ES01

450.000

400.000

350.000

300.000

250.000

200.000

150.000

100.000

50.000

0

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

The new national system on registered unemployed SISPE = Sistema de Información Público de Empleo is avail-
able since June 2005.
The revised data on registered unemployment in Spain are 26,3 % higher than the respective old data. The ﬁ gures 
are higher for all age groups, but the biggest changes are within the main working age with changes of 30 % and 
more for the age groups 25-29 to 40-44.
The groups to be included in the registered unemployed have been reclassiﬁ ed. From the several changes that 
have occurred, those resulting in higher ﬁ gures may be the inclusion of unemployed immigrants and unemployed 
agricultural workers. A different calculation is also used for the marginally employed (less than 20 hours a week), 
but this should only reﬂ ect the registered jobseekers and not the registered unemployed, (Cortés, Ocana 2005).

Unemployment by age, 2003

LFS-U

RU

Graph ES01_new

450.000

400.000

350.000

300.000

250.000

200.000

150.000

100.000

50.000

0

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

13  Due to the new data the registered unemployed nearly match the LFS unemployed for the totals, the registered unemployed are 0,7 % higher than the LFS 

unemployed.

21

(c) Registration with the public employment service, register data vs. LFS data on registration

In the PES register three different categories of jobseekers are added to the total of all jobseekers: 
1 - unemployed jobseekers, i.e. the registered unemployed
2 - jobseekers not registered as unemployed because they are excluded from the statistical concept (see 
deﬁ nition above)
3 - employed jobseekers who seek a different employment.

Register groups

Can be in the LFS…

Unemployed jobseekers, i.e. registered unemployed  (RU)

LFS-R-U

Jobseekers not registered as unemployed – RJ (JS-not RU)

LFS-R (labour status not identiﬁ ed)

Employed jobseekers – R-E (JS-E)

LFS-R-E

Graph ES02

2,5

2,0

1,5

1,0

0,5

0,0

PES registration by status in relation to RU (RU = 1)

PES-JS-not RU

PES-JS-E

PES-RU

LFS-R-I

LFS-R-E

LFS-R-U

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

Total

15-19

20-59

60-64

(Legend: The three top labels refer to PES columns; the three lower labels refer to LFS columns)

Whereas the unemployment registration information for the old data was quite close between LFS and PES, ex-
cept for the older age group (see graph ES02), this is different, if the new data are taken into account. Now more 
people are registered as unemployed than compared to those unemployed in the LFS claiming to be registered:

Graph ES02_new

2,0

1,8

1,6

1,4

1,2

1,0

0,8

0,6

0,4

0,2

0,0

PES registration by status in relation to RU (RU = 1)

PES-JS-E

PES-JS-not RU

PES-RU

LFS-R-I

LFS-R-E

LFS-R-U

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

Total

15-19

20-59

60-64

(Legend: The three top labels refer to PES columns; the three lower labels refer to LFS columns)

22

The total ﬁ gure of registered jobseekers in Spain 2003 was 15 % higher than the LFS-unemployed, employed- or 
inactive claiming to be registered with the PES. Looking at the different groups available (graph ES 02), this dif-
ference results more from the registered inactive and employed than from the registered unemployed. In the PES 
register, there are about 1,660,000 unemployed compared to about 1,650,000 LFS-unemployed claiming to be 
registered.

The comparability between the LFS-unemployed claiming to be registered and the registered unemployed is good 
for the main working age (20-59 years). The difference between LFS-U and RU before observed in graph ES01 
for the younger age group is reduced to 18 %, the LFS ﬁ gures still being higher than the PES ﬁ gures. If we 
compare only the LFS unemployed with the registered unemployed, in this age-group the LFS ﬁ gures are 88 % 
higher than the PES registered unemployed (graph ES01).
In the older age-group (60-64) the registered unemployed are nearly 2,5 times as high as the LFS unemployed 
who claim to be registered. At ﬁ rst glance, we have a lack of comparability for this age group. The 60-64 year-old 
LFS-registered include 58 % inactive, a much higher rate than in other age groups. This may be caused by the 
problem of the older unemployed having difﬁ culty in ﬁ nding a new employment. If they do not feel they have a 
chance to be employed again, they might not search actively anymore and thus not fulﬁ l the ILO (LFS) deﬁ nitions 
of unemployment. This phenomenon can be observed in other countries too, as in Austria and in Finland.

(d) LFS-unemployed claiming not to be registered, only LFS-data

In Spain, more than 20 % of the LFS-unemployed claim not to be registered as unemployed. Graph ES03 corre-
sponds to graphs ES01 and ES03 as the difference between the registered unemployed and the LFS-unemployed 
is included. As in the other countries, the share of the LFS-unemployed who claim not to be registered is highest 
for the younger ages. The share of the LFS-unemployed with registration to LFS-unemployed decreases for men 
with increasing age, for women it decreases slowly to 25-29, but then stays around 20 %.

Share of LFS-U-NR / LFS-U

Women
Men

Graph ES03

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Total

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

II 6. Sweden

(a) Regulations of registered unemployment compared to the LFS harmonised regulations on   
     unemployment

The Swedish deﬁ nition of registered unemployed is quite close to the deﬁ nition of the LFS and includes persons 
who are without a job, willing to work, actively seeking and currently available. Excluded are persons who are 
not immediately available, e.g. because they have to complete their education, are in compulsory military serv-
ice, on parental leave, or “soon retiring”. Also part-time employed and employed by the hour, people seeking 
part-time or temporary work and active labour market measure participants are not registered as unemployed. 
While the exclusion of part-time employed is compatible with the ILO deﬁ nition, the exclusion of those com-
pleting education, on parental leave and “soon retiring” can lead to differences with the LFS as in these cases 

23

who are without work the comparability depends to a higher extent on the self-assessment of the availability and 
job-search activities in the LFS:
Completing education: A student is not allowed to register as unemployed before the education has ended. Like 
in other countries it is assumed that people who are in full-time education are not available on the labour market 
before ﬁ nishing their studies. The same applies to measure participants. As students sometimes work to ﬁ nance 
their studies and thus search actively for an employment, they may fulﬁ l the unemployment criteria of the ILO, 
though in the Swedish LFS ﬁ gures students are also excluded – except for the holidays.
Young people: In Sweden usually the municipalitiy and not the PES is responsible for 16-19 year-old, i.e. most 
people in this age group do not have any contact to the PES and thus can not be registered.
Parental leave: The Swedish system guarantees a place in the preschool for children of 16 months and older whose 
parents are unemployed, i.e. availability is not blocked by caring responsibilities of parents having a problem to 
ﬁ nd a place for their children. Only unemployed parents who want to start working and search actively before 
their child is 16 months old could be unemployed in the LFS without being registered as unemployed. But this 
will only be a minor group.
“Soon  retiring”:  60  to  64  year-old  who  are  long-term  unemployed  and  receive  beneﬁ ts  may  go  on  receiving 
beneﬁ ts without being available on the labour market any more.14 In the register this group is not counted as un-
employed. They could be unemployed in the LFS in case that they still fulﬁ l the ILO criteria. Otherwise in both 
systems they would belong to the inactive. 

In the Swedish PES, as in the ILO deﬁ nition (even) one hour of work in a week counts as employment, i.e. 
jobseekers with only a few working hours a week are not registered as unemployed. However, unemployment 
beneﬁ t recipients may work up to 33 hours and still receive unemployment beneﬁ ts. They are not counted as 
unemployed, but as part-time unemployed. The beneﬁ ciaries want to work up to 40 hours and work less than 34 
hours a week. Before being entitled they did work full-time. In the LFS this group by deﬁ nition belongs to the 
registered employed.

(b) Unemployment by age, register data vs. LFS-unemployed

In Sweden, the ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed are 13.8% smaller compared to the LFS unemployed meas-
ured by the public employment service (see table 1). The relation varies for different age groups (see graph SE01). 
In the youngest age group (15-19 years) the difference between registered unemployed and LFS unemployed is 
much bigger than in other age groups, a phenomenon to be observed in most member states (see below II.7 about 
youth unemployment). 

The exclusion of the 15-19 year-old reduces the difference between the LFS unemployed and the registered un-
employed to only 7 %. There are two more age groups with signiﬁ cantly higher LFS unemployed compared to the 
ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed; these are the age groups of 20-24 and 55-59. 
While the 20-24 might still reﬂ ect the typical effect of youth unemployment, the groups of the 55-59 year old with 
higher LFS than registered unemployment ﬁ gures is hard to explain, especially if the share of LFS-unemployed 
who are not registered is taken into account see paragraph (d) on non-registration and graph SE03 below. In most 
other countries the older age-groups show higher register ﬁ gures than LFS unemployed giving the impression that 
the criteria for active search and availabilty are no longer fulﬁ lled by a certain group of the older unemployed.

14  Occasional registration compensation, LMP SE-29.

24

Unemployment by age, 2003

LFS-U

RU

Graph SE01

45.000

40.000

35.000

30.000

25.000

20.000

15.000

10.000

5.000

0

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

(c) Registration with the public employment service, register data vs. LFS data on registration
Besides the registered unemployed in Sweden registered jobseekers (not unemployed), measure participants and 
part-time unemployed receiving beneﬁ ts can be identiﬁ ed.

Register groups

Registered unemployed (RU)

Measure participants (cat. 2)

Part-time unemployed (receiving beneﬁ ts) (JS-E)

Can be in the LFS…

LFS-R-U

LFS-R-I

LFS-R-E

Other registered jobseekers (RJ not RU)

LFS-R-I, LFS-R-E 

PES registration by status in relation to RU (RU = 1)

Graph SE02

4,0

3,5

3,0

2,5

2,0

1,5

1,0

0,5

0,0

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

LFS

PES

Total

15-19

20-59

60-64

(Legend: The four top labels refer to PES columns; the three lower labels refer to LFS columns)

PES-RJ (not RU)

PES-Cat 2 (R-I)
PES-JS-E

PES-RU
LFS-R-I
LFS-R-E

LFS-R-U

25

In Sweden, the 2003 total number of registered jobseekers for the total of all age-groups is about 28 % bigger com-
pared to the registration ﬁ gures of the LFS (see graph SE02). The ﬁ gures for the registered jobseekers are bigger 
than the LFS-registered for all age-groups except for the 15-19 year-old. 

Looking at the registered unemployed in both systems these are approximately the same for the total and also for 
most age groups, the younger age again being an exception: More young people say that they are registered as 
unemployed than the register ﬁ gures show.

While the ﬁ gures of the LFS-unemployed in Sweden are higher than the registered unemployed (see graph SE01), 
the ﬁ gures of registered unemployed are comparable to LFS-unemployed claiming to be registered - except for 
the 15-19 year-old. In Sweden a share of 38 % of the LFS-registered and 23 % of the registered jobseekers in the 
PES claim to be employed. This is more than in other countries and reﬂ ects the regulations for the part-time un-
employed receiving beneﬁ ts. The LFS-employed and registered also include jobseekers who do not get beneﬁ ts, 
in the PES they belong to the other registered jobseekers (here identiﬁ ed as JS-E). 

Training measure participants (JS-cat2) in Sweden are not registered as unemployed. This group and the other not 
(un)employed registered jobseekers in the LFS should equal the LFS-registered inactive.15 In this case, the PES 
ﬁ gures are much higher than the LFS-ﬁ gures – not all who are registered by the PES claim to be so in the LFS, 
though the difference results not from the registered unemployed being equal to the LFS-unemployed claiming 
to be registered.

Registered unemployed and LFS-unemployed claiming to be registered are very consistent in general, probably 
because the groups of people with marginal employment who receive beneﬁ ts are not registered as unemployed, 
but as jobseekers, according to the LFS-criteria. In this way, the task of the PES to ensure income is fulﬁ lled, as 
well as the LFS-deﬁ nition of unemployment.

As the ﬁ gures of registered unemployed are nearly the same in both systems but the total registration ﬁ gures differ, 
the differences in registration has to be found in other groups of registered jobseekers but the registered unem-
ployed. Only 36 % of the registered jobseekers in Sweden belong to the registered unemployed, the other groups 
are not unemployed jobseekers (32 %) and also the part-time unemployed (23 %) and measure participants (9 %).

(d) LFS-unemployed claiming not to be registered, only LFS-data

About 10 % of the LFS unemployed in Sweden say they are not registered with the PES, the ﬁ gure for the younger 
age group (15-19) being much higher (47 %) (see graph SE03) Excluding the 15-19 year olds, the average ﬁ gure 
for the other ages is reduced to 6 %. There are only small differences between male and female unemployed, the 
biggest difference is to be found in the age-group of the 35-39 year olds. Here the share of the LFS-NR of the men 
(6 %) is about 4 percentage points higher compared to the women (2 %). 

Though  the  55-59  year  olds  show  a  signiﬁ cantly  higher  LFS  unemployment  compared  to  the  PES’  registered 
unemployment ﬁ gures (+ 33 %), the share of those LFS-unemployed in this age group who say they are not reg-
istered compared to all LFS-unemployed, is rather small. (See graphs SE01 and SE03, age group 55-59). This 
cannot be explained by age-speciﬁ c regulations as early retirement is only available for long-term unemployed 
60-64 year olds.

15  In Sweden RJ(notRU) + RJcat2 > LFS-RI (see graph SE02).

26

Share of LFS-U-NR / LFS-U

Women

Men

Graph SE03

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Total

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

II 7 - Observations on registration of  Youth unemployed

In all the countries included in the detailed comparison, a different relation between the LFS-unemployment and 
the PES‘ registered unemployment can be observed for the younger age group of 15-19 year olds. In comparison 
to the totals, the younger unemployed are to a higher share not registered with the PES (see graph YU01). To a 
certain extent this can be explained by the situation typical for the younger ages at the beginning of the working 
age. At this age, most young people leave school and either enter university, some other further education or 
their ﬁ rst employment (see table YU01). 

The ﬁ rst employment often is a combination of work and vocational training, mostly seen in the apprenticeship 
systems of for example Austria and Germany, but also to be found in youth programs in Sweden and the United 
Kingdom. Full-time students often also work to a certain extent, some regularly in their spare time, others in 
their vacations, i.e. young people enter the labour market in a ﬁ rst step often only part-time besides their full- or 
part-time education, or in the form of typical employment for young people (ﬁ rst employments, training on the 
job, etc.). Employment and unemployment of young people both differ from employment and unemployment in 
the main working ages.

For the ILO deﬁ nition, the kind of employment and unemployment does not make any difference to categorising 
someone as employed, unemployed or inactive. In contrast to the LFS, the national deﬁ nitions follow different goals 
and thus exclude certain groups like full-time students who only look for a part-time or ﬁ xed-term employment.

- Seasonal unemployment of young people in full-time education: Young people who are still in education 
and look for employment during their vacations may be unemployed due to the LFS deﬁ nition, but usually will 
not use the placement services of the PES and even if they use it they will not be registered as unemployed as 
they still are in education. A study in Finland (Sitho 2003, p. 159-176) compared the LFS-unemployed and the 
registered unemployed young people over the year. While the LFS ﬁ gures varied during the year, being higher 
in the months with vacations, the PES ﬁ gures of the registered unemployed for this age group were much more 
stable. A Eurostat study shows 18 year old students as a percentage of the corresponding age population (An-
drén/Schmidt 2005).

27

Table YU01 - Young people in full-time ducation

Germany

Spain

Austria

Finland

Sweden

Students (ISCED levels 1-6) aged 18 
year olds as % of corresponding age 
population
Students (ISCED levels 1-6) aged 15 
to 24 year olds as % of corresponding 
age population

86.9

68.4

69.4

91.9

94.5

63.5

54.0

50.4

69.4

66.1

- The beginning of the working age - work and education. The younger ages are characterized by a combina-
tion of education and work. There are countries with a especially historic apprenticeship system offering young 
people the chance to start working and get an education in a profession at the same time. As these apprenticeships 
are like other employment they can be placed by the PES. Young people interested in apprenticeships might be 
younger than in other countries when they are in contact with the PES – although they are not necessarily regis-
tered as jobseekers, or even as unemployed.

- Special programmes for young unemployed: Besides the apprenticeship system other measures are offered 
to young people, most of these measures are for those with disadvantages in the labour market, e.g. who have no 
secondary school qualiﬁ cations and also have no vocational qualiﬁ cation. In some countries, the PES is responsi-
ble for helping these groups to be integrated in the labour market by offering them additional education.

- Usually young unemployed who didn’t work before are not entitled to unemployment beneﬁ ts, i.e. this “incen-
tive“ to go to the PES does not exist for the young, but it usually is one of the most important reasons for the un-
employed to register. However, there may be other ﬁ nancial reasons to go to the PES and register as                 job-
seeker / unemployed. 

The need for young people to go to their PES depends on several factors like the national system of voca-
tional education, beneﬁ ts, measures and of course the deﬁ nitions of employment and unemployment, espe-
cially in combination with education.

Share RU/LFS-U

15-19

20-24

Total

Austria

Finland

Germany

Spain

Sweden

Graph YU01

180%

160%

140%

120%

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

28

Graph Yu 01 shows the share of registered unemployed to LFS-unemployed for the age group of the 15-19 year 
olds compared to the total for all countries included in the detailed country comparison. What can be observed 
for all countries is that in the young ages the share of registered unemployed to LFS-unemployed is smaller than   
100 % and also smaller than for the total of all age groups. This means that it is less likely for a young person to be 
registered with the PES than to be counted as unemployed in the LFS. It is also less likely for a LFS-unemployed 
young person to be registered with the PES than it is compared to the total of all ages. 

Germany and Austria have the highest share of registered unemployed compared to the LFS in the young age 
group, about 75 %. This might be explained by the apprenticeship system in these countries, as most of the young 
people who are interested in an apprenticeship have contact with the PES before. Finland and Sweden have the 
smallest share of registered unemployed compared to LFS-unemployed for the age group of 15-19 years with 
only about 25 %. This is interesting comparing the values of table YU01 above. The biggest differences between 
LSF and registration ﬁ gures can be observed in Finland and Sweden, the two countries with a higher share of the 
young people still in full time education.

The  biggest  difference  between  the  younger  age  groups  and  the  total  in  percentage  points  is  to  be  found  in 
Finland and Austria, with Austria having a total of registered unemployed about 55 % higher compared to LFS-
unemployed for the total of all ages. Sweden, with smaller ﬁ gures of registered unemployed compared to LFS-
unemployed for the total of all ages also has a big difference between the total and the younger age group. It is 
interesting that Austria, who on the one hand is within the countries having the high share of RU / LFS-U for the 
younger ages, has on the other hand such big differences compared to the total of all ages. 

This picture changes if the 20-24 year olds are only included in the observation of youth unemployment. Except 
for Spain, the share of registered unemployed to LFS-unemployed is closer to the total of all ages, in Sweden it 
is even higher than the total. In this age group, more young people are integrated in the regular labour market 
and thus in case of unemployment may already be entitled to beneﬁ ts and thus obliged to go to the public em-
ployment service.

Conclusions

The  difference  between  the  LFS  unemployed  and  registered  unemployed  in  each  country  reﬂ ect  the  different 
national regulations on unemployment registration in combination with beneﬁ t regulations. As these regulations 
vary between the countries, it can be concluded that there is no systematic pattern valid for all countries which 
can explain the discrepancies between the ﬁ gures of registered unemployed and the ﬁ gures of harmonised unem-
ployed. Unemployment registers are part of the social protection system and usually unemployed persons receive 
some beneﬁ ts, therefore, there is a strong connection between unemployment registration regulations and eligi-
bility for beneﬁ ts. According to the ILO harmonised deﬁ nitions, a person is counted as employed if he/she only 
works one hour a week. The earnings coming from this employment would certainly not be enough to live from, 
therefore the beneﬁ t systems in some countries take this fact into account, and extend the consideration as “un-
employed” to persons working for a very small salary or working a very small number of hours. However, other 
countries adopt in their national registers the same strict deﬁ nition of “employed” and “unemployed” persons as 
established by the ILO.
From  the  analysis  of  the  rules  and  deﬁ nitions  applied  in  the  registers  of  the  countries  studied  in  this  article 
three groups of population deserve special consideration: Young people, including ﬁ rst-job seekers, in particular 
youngsters under 19, are less frequently seen in the registers compared with the share of young unemployed per-
sons (of the same age-group) shown in the LFS ﬁ gures. This is true for all ﬁ ve countries included in the detailed 
comparison, and not only for those countries where registered unemployed ﬁ gures (totals) are lower than harmo-
nised unemployed (totals). Persons in “marginal” or “minimal” jobs, although they are technically employed, 
are classiﬁ ed as “registered unemployed” and are still eligible for unemployment (or similar) beneﬁ ts in Finland, 
Germany and Austria. This fact might partly explain why in these three countries the ﬁ gures of registered unem-
ployed are higher than those of harmonised unemployed. This same group of persons are classiﬁ ed as “employed” 
in the registers of Sweden and Spain. This fact might explain why in these two countries the ﬁ gures of registered 
unemployed are lower than those of registered unemployed. Older unemployed persons, in particular over 60 year 
olds, are less frequently included in the registers compared with the survey in Germany and Sweden, whereas 

29

are more present in the registers than in the surveys of Finland, Austria and Sweden. The reasons might lie in the 
speciﬁ c regulations of each country, but need to be further explored. Table 3 summarizes the evidence about the 
three groups mentioned above, which seem to suggest that only the special treatment of those with “minimal jobs” 
would partially explain the discrepancies between the registered unemployed and the LFS unemployed ﬁ gures. 

Table 3 – Comparing RU and LFS data for 3 groups of unemployed persons

Finland

Austria

Germany

Spain

Sweden

Total RU

> LFS’U

> LFS’U

> LFS’U

> LFS’U

> LFS’U

Young RU (15-19) Older RU (60+)

Minimal jobs

< LFS’U (15-19)

> LFS’U (>60)

< LFS’U (15-19)

> LFS’U (>60)

< LFS’U (15-19)

> LFS’U (>60)

< LFS’U (15-19)

> LFS’U (>60)

< LFS’U (15-19)

> LFS’U (>60)

Yes RU

Yes RU

Yes RU

Yes RU

Yes RU

Key:  Example Finland: (1) The total number of registered unemployed is higher than the total number of harmonised unemployed meas-
ured in the LFS; (2) The number of young people between 15-19 registered as unemployed is smaller than the same age group as measured 
in the LFS, (3) The number of registered unemployed persons 60 years or older, is higher than the same age group as measured in the LFS, 
(4) Persons having some kind of “minimal jobs” can be registered as unemployed.

It should also be mentioned that in addition to these three groups, the group of “Unemployment Beneﬁ t Recipi-
ents” accounts for some or most of the differences between the registered unemployed and harmonised unem-
ployed in Ireland and the United Kingdom, since in these two countries only persons receiving unemployment or 
similar beneﬁ ts are included in the registers, which are not designed to measure unemployment, yet are the closest 
instrument to what in other countries are called unemployment registers. In both countries, the register unemploy-
ment ﬁ gures are much lower than those of harmonised unemployment.
The comparison between the numbers of registered unemployed and those who in the LFS say they are registered 
with the Public Employment Services raises some doubts about the value of this information in some countries, 
suggesting that questions relating to registration with the PES can be misunderstood by the respondents or even 
by the interviewers and can produce misleading information.
On the contrary, it has been observed that analysing the differences between the LFS unemployed and the RU by 
age groups can provide extremely useful information which cannot be gathered by simply comparing the total 
ﬁ gures in both sources. This is true both for young people and also for older people. For the younger, the study 
has been quite exhaustive. A study of older people would be extremely interesting, and should include the vari-
ous special regulations for this age group, which are quite complex in most countries. An important feature of 
the registers is that it is possible to analyze small groups of the population by crossing several variables which 
result in very small groups (probably too small to be correctly identiﬁ ed in the survey), such as participants 
in labour market policy measures by gender or pensioners looking for a job. Moreover, in countries with very 
developed registration systems, this analysis can be exhaustive and consequently these population groups can 
be observed and followed up. This is one of the reasons why combining the use of both registers and survey pro-
vides the richest possible information for small yet very relevant groups which often are targeted by important 
policy interventions.

30

List of abbreviations

Labour Force Survey
Labour Force Survey data on unemployment 
Unemployed measured by the Labour Force Survey which declare to be registered 
with the Public employment services
Employed measured by the LFS who declare to be registered with the PES 
Inactive measured with the LFS who declare to be registered with the PES
Registered unemployed
Registered jobseekers
Registered jobseekers who are employed
Registered unemployed with marginal employment
Apprenticeship seekers
Category 2 of the LMP database, i.e. active labour market measures – training
International Labour Organization
Public Employment Services
Labour Market Policy
Graph 1 for Austria
Graph 1 for Finland
Graph 1 for Germany
Graph 1 for Spain
Graph 1 for Sweden 
International Standard Classiﬁ cation of Education

LFS 
LFS’U 
LFS-RU 

LFS-RE  
LFS-RI 
RU 
RJ  
RJ-E 
RU-E 
AS 
Cat2 
ILO 
PES 
LMP 
AT01 
FI01 
DE01 
ES01 
SE01 
ISCED 

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Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to the very useful comments received from the LMP delegates who read several drafts 
of this article, in particular to Andreas Buzek from Austria, Ilkka Nio and Petri Syvannen from Finland, Ascen-
sion Maravall, Florentina Alvarez and Almudena Duran from Spain, Cecilia Palm from Sweden and John Maher 
from Ireland. The same goes to the Eurostat colleagues, responsible for the LFS, who provided us with several 
sets of data and answered patiently to different requests, in particular Sylvain Jouhette, Ana Franco and Jonny 
Johansson. We also thank Zuzana Pavlickova-Svalbova and Tanya Aleksandrova, who helped us greatly in a previ-
ous version of this article.

31