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Chapter 12.
Foreign Labor Statistics
Analysis
and Presentation
Analyses of international labor statistics focus upon
comparisons with U.S. data. Wherever possible, the
foreign data are adjusted to U.S. definitions and
concepts to facilitate comparisons; for example, the
adjustment of foreign unemployment rates to approximate
U.S. concepts and the adjustment of production worker
earnings to total hourly compensation.
Labor force, employment, and unemployment data are
analyzed to determine the sources or components of
differences and changes in labor force measures. Shifts
in labor force composition are analyzed by age, sex, and
industrial sector. Productivity and unit labor cost data
are analyzed to explain the relative contributions of
changes in output, employment, average hours,
compensation, and exchange rates to changes in the
measures. Changes in production worker compensation
costs, measured in U.S. dollars, are analyzed to
determine the relative contributions of changes in pay
for time worked and the other elements of compensation
and changes in exchange rates.
The presentation of foreign labor statistics varies
with the degree of analysis and major use of the data.
Comprehensive bulletins have been published, covering
manufacturing productivity and labor cost trends, steel
productivity and costs, unemployment and labor force
comparisons, and youth unemployment comparisons. For more
current developments, articles are published periodically
in the Monthly Labor Review. Some series are
published regularly in the statistical section of the Monthly
Labor Review; an annual news release is issued on
comparative trends in manufacturing productivity and
labor costs; and the hourly compensation cost measures
for total manufacturing are issued in BLS reports. In
1995, International Labor Comparisons for the G-7
Countries: A Chartbook was published. The BLS Handbook
of Labor Statistics (up to 1987) and the Bureau of
the Census Statistical Abstract of the United States
contain many of the principal foreign data series, and
some series are published in the annual Economic
Report of the President and in the Bureau's biennial
Report on the American Workforce. Updates to the
series of data on the family are published each year only
in the Statistical Abstract of the United States.
Many unpublished tabulations of current comparative data,
such as real gross domestic product per capita and per
employed person and comparative labor force statistics in
10 countries are available on request. Many data
series are also available on the World Wide Web and
diskette.
Next: Uses and
Limitations
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Bureau of Labor Statistics
