12-06-2015, 10:08 PM
OK, so I was right and I was wrong: the difference is not the length of unemployment but there is an important difference: "active" vs "passive" job searching. In the US, a person is not considered unemployed (or part of the work force) if he or she is only passively looking for employment. For example, searching web sites, reading newspaper ads etc is considered passive, and if that's all you did, US BLS will not count you as unemployed, it will assume you are not part of the labour force (well, labor force since it's the US). The difference might be about a percentage point in the unemployment rates.
More details here:
http://milescorak.com/2012/05/04/the-gap...t-appears/
More details here:
http://milescorak.com/2012/05/04/the-gap...t-appears/