U.S. unemployment worse than in France?

Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released a frankly horrific set of numbers. The unemployment rate hit 8.5%, the highest in more than 25 years; 663,000 workers lost their jobs in March alone; 25 million are underemployed; and over the course of the recession, the U.S. has bled more than 5 million jobs.

Certainly, the U.S. has fewer social safeguards against the disruptions of unemployment than many other high-income economies, meaning fewer protections against lay-offs and less-generous unemployment benefits. (FP looked at the best places to lose your job last month.) This generally means more volatility in the unemployment rate.

But is the U.S. really doing worse than, say, France and the United Kingdom, countries with historically high unemployment? 

The short answer is yes; the U.S. recession has gone on for longer and is deeper than in Europe, and therefore has sapped three times as many jobs.  The unemployment rate in the U.S. is higher than in the U.K., and close to France’s. (The U.K. and French numbers above are estimates.) And the job-losses are accelerating faster in the U.S. than in other countries.

Here’s hoping for it to bottom-out soon.