Unemployment in Europe equals US

Some interesting charts from Credit Suisse this morning are testing the idea that eurozone unemployment looks particularly awful.

Adjust for the rising number of people participating in the workforce in the eurozone, and the falling number willing to work in the US, and unemployment is just about the same in both.

This chart shows the unemployment rate in the eurozone’s 12 pre-2007 members, and in the US, adjusted for the changing willingness to work:

Here’s how the willingness to work, the participation rate, has changed:

Broadly speaking, Europeans are increasingly willing to work, while Americans are less willing. This is usually interpreted negatively in the US, as Americans giving up looking for work because there are so few jobs available – combined with retirement.

CS thinks there’s more going on than simply the demographic issues of the baby boomers drawing their pensions; there’s been a much bigger drop in the participation rate of the 25-54 year old men who used to make up the core of the workforce.